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oil  WHAT  IS  THERE 
!li      IN  RELIGION? 


■i    HENRY  SLOANE  COFFIN 


■■ 


Southern  Branch 
of  the 

University  of  California 

Los  Angeles 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA^ 

LIBRARY, 
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Southern  Branch 
of  the 

University  of  California 

Los  Angeles 


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WHAT  IS  THERE  IN  RELIGION? 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   -    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


WHAT  IS  THERE 
IN  RELIGION? 

Flumen  Dei  repletum  est  aquis. 


BY 

HENRY  SLOANE  COFFIN 

Minister    in    the    Madiso)i    Avenue    Presbyterian    Church,    and 

Associate  Professor  in  the  Union  Theological 

Bemi/nary,  New  York  City. 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1922 
All  rights  reserved 

6  3  4  5  3 


COPTEIOHT,    1922, 

By  the  macmillan  company 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1922 

Reprinted,  November,  1922 
Reprinted,  July,  1923 


PRINTED   IN    THE    UNITED   STATES    OF   AMERICA 


~l 


^ 


1  G5     w 


TO  THE  EEVEEEND  PRESIDENT 

AETHUR    CUSHMAN    MC  GIFFERT,    PH.D.,    D.D.,    LL.D., 

MY    TEACHER,    COLLEAGUE    AND    CHIEF, 

IN  HONOE  AND  AFFECTION 


^ 


">       Five  of  the  following  chapters  were  delivered  upon  the 


'-\ 


Merrick  Lectureship  on  "practical  and  experimental  re- 
A,vv  ligion,"  at  Ohio  "Wesleyan  University,  in  April,   1922. 
The  other  chapters  are  added  in  order  that  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  theme  inay  be  less  fragmentary. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I.    Eefeeshmext 

PAGE 
1 

11.    Cleansing      .... 

22 

III.    Power 

41 

IV.    Illumination 

60 

V.    Fertility       .... 

75 

VI.    Buoyancy       .... 

88 

VII.    Serenity  and  Adventure 

102 

VIII.    Beauty 

12S 

IX.    DivisioiJ  AND  Unity    . 

143 

X.    Change  and  Permanence 

159 

CHAPTER  I 

EEFRESIIMENT 

SHORTLY  after  the  Armistice,  a  group  of  young 
people  ia  a  town  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson 
were  discussing  the  state  of  the  universe  (a  theme 
pleasing  to  younger  minds  because  of  its  roominess),  and 
they  were  mentioning  factors  to  be  counted  upon  in  the 
remaking  of  a  shattered  world.  One  spoke  of  religion, 
and  was  abruptly  challenged  with  the  question:  "What 
is  there  in  religion  anyhow?"  Th<^  ""^'^  ^f  +b'"  .9T0up 
turned  towards  an  older  man,  who  somewhat  mystified 
the  circle  by  asking:  "What  is  there  in  the  Hudson 
River  anyhow?"  He  went  on  to  answer  his  own  ques- 
tion by  pointing  out  that  what  the  river  does  for  the  ter- 
ritory through  which  it  flows,  that  the  Christian  faith 
does  for  those  whom  it  reaches.  Trampers  climbing  Mt. 
Marcy  meet  the  Hudson  rising  in  Lake  Tear-of-the-Clouds, 
and  slake  their  thirst  from  a  cooling  brook;  so  believing 
people  discover  refreshment  in  religion.  A  little  farther 
on  its  course  the  brook  provides  campers  with  a  bathing- 
pool  where  they  wash  themselves,  and  at  its  lower  end 
the  Hudson  receives  the  filth  of  !N^ew  York  City  from  a 
hundred  sewers  and  sweeps  it  out  into  the  salt  ocean. 
Thus  religion  cleanses  individuals  and  communities. 
Along  part  of  the  river's  course  mills  are  built,  and  the 
stream  supplies  them  with  power.     Religion  has  always 

been  found   an   incalculable   reinforcement.      Sometimes 

1  ■  -- 


2  What  Is  Theke  ix  Relioiox? 

tlie  power  in  the  stream  is  transmuted  into  electricity  and 
carried  to  light  the  streets  and  homes  of  towns.  Faith 
has  found  illumination  in  fellowship  with  God.  The 
entire  valley  through  which  the  Hudson  flows  is  made 
more  fertile  hy  the  presence  of  this  body  of  water;  and 
religion  is  a  source  of  fruitfulncss  in  human  life.  Upon 
the  river's  broader  stretches  steamers  and  barges  carry 
freight  and  passengers;  so  believers  know  themselves  up- 
held by  their  trust.  The  Hudson  forms  part  of  l^ew 
Yorik's  Harbor,  affording  a  quiet  anchorage  for  ships, 
and  opening  out  through  the  bay  into  the  vast  Atlantic 
it  supplies  a  passage  to  the  great  deep.  So  religion  both 
furnishes  peace  to  men  in  search  of  haven,  and  an  outlet  to 
adventure  on  the  boundless  sea.  The  river  beautifies  the 
landscape ;  and  men  of  faith  find  life  enhanced  with  love- 
liness when  they  are' aware  of  the  presence  of  the  living 
God.  The  Hudson  is  a  barrier,  forming  a  dividing  line 
between  states  and  sundering  those  who  dwell  on  oppo- 
site banks,  but  it  is  also  a  highway  upon  which  ferries 
ply^and  steamers  make  daily  connections  between  cities 
miles  apart.  Religion  draws  boundaries  and  separates 
men,  whose  convictions  compel  them  to  take  clearly  defined 
positions ;  but  it  also  is  the  great  unifier,  establishing  in- 
tercourse between  those  who  else  would  be  without  sense 
of  kinship  and  unconnected.  The  Hudson,  like  all  rivers, 
is  constantly  changing — flowing  away  to  the  ocean;  but 
the  stream  remains  a  permanent  part  of  the  landscape— 
the  watershed  from  the  Adirondacks  to  the  Atlantic.  So 
religion  is  always  in  flux,  seeming  about  to  pass  altogether, 
but  forever  renewed,  an  abiding  element  in  human  lif e— 
the  never  ceasing  outgo  of  man's  heart  towards  God,  be- 


Refreshment  -    '  3 

cause  jthat  heart  is  continually  replenished  by  inspirations 
from  God. 

There  was  nothing  novel  in  this  illustration.  Centuries 
ago  a  psalmist  had  sung:  "There  is  a  river  the  streams 
whereof  make  glad  the  city  of  God,"  and  he  was  thinking 
of  God's  presence  with  His  people,  for  he  continued  :  "God 
is  in  the  midst  of  her."  And  the  prophet  Ezekiel  con- 
cludes his  description  of  the  redeemed  and  restored  holy 
land  by  picturing  a  miraculous  river  which  emerged  from 
the  threshold  of  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem  and  brought  life 
whithersoever  its  waters  came. 

May  I,  a  provincial  I^ew  Yorker,  crave  your  indulgence 
to  employ  our  loved  and  admired  Hudson  as  a  parable, 
in  attempting  a  fractional  answer  to  the  query.  What  is 
there  in  religion  ? 

We  shall  narrow  the  question  somewhat,  as  though  it 
read.  What  is  there  in  Christian  religion  ?  because  that 
faith  has  the  only  chance  of  gaining  the  attention  of  stu- 
dents in  an  American  college;  and  also  because,  as  Dean 
Inge  has  well  said,  "Christianity  is  not  a  religion,  but  re- 
ligion itself  in  its  most  universal  and  deepest  aspects." 
And  we  shall  further  limit  our  answer,  as  though  the  ques- 
tion read:  "What  is  there  in  Christian  religion  ivJiich 
appeals  to  people  of  our  day?"  At  Trenton,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Delaware,  there  is  a  colonial  house,  equipped  with 
a  water-wheel  which  in  George  Washington's  time 
ran  a  grist-mill.  To-day  the  occupants  of  the  house  find 
it  more  convenient  to  buy  their  flour;  but  the  water-wheel 
is  still  in  operation  and  generates  electricity  to  light  the 
house.  The  successive  centuries  find  different  uses  for 
their  fellowship  with  the  living  God.     We  shall  freely 


4  What  Is  There  i:x  Religion? 

draw  on  all  the  centuries  for  illustrations,  but  we  shall 
look  for  illustrations  of  those  experiences  which  have 
worth  for  normal  people  among  ourselves.  We  shall  ap- 
peal oftenest  to  the  experiences  recorded  in  the  Bible,  be- 
cause its  books  contain  the  accounts  of  discoveries,  which 
were  made  not  only  by  their  first  explorers,  but  which  have 
been  repeated  by  many  thousands  since  in  every  genera- 
tion. The  reason  the  Bible  remains  the  authority  on  the 
life  of  God  with  men  is  that  it  constantly  proves  its  experi- 
ences true  to  age  after  age  of  those  who  employ  it  as 
their  guide.  A  river  is  a  continuous  flow  of  water  in  a 
well-defined  stream.  It  is  the  Bible,  more  than  any  other 
institution,  which  keeps  the  Christian  religion  a  continu- 
ous and  clearly  recognizable  stream  of  life  with  God 
through  the  centuries.  Without  it  the  water  of  divine 
life  which  had  its  origin  in  Jesus,  collecting  in  Him  from 
many  earlier  tributaries,  would  have  become  so  mixed 
with  alien  currents,  and  would  have  flowed  off  into  such 
widely  separated  river-beds,  that  it  would  have  lost  its 
identity.  The  water  of  life  found  its  banks  and  its 
proper  channel  in  the  First  Century,  and  the  ISTew  Testa- 
ment has  held  it  permanently  in  its  true  course  ever  since. 
We  cannot  answer  the  question,  What  is  there  in  Christian 
religion  ?  without  looking  first  at  the  experiences  contained 
in  the  Scriptures  and  tested  and  approved  by  the  Church 
of  all  the  following  centuries. 

In  selecting  a  parable  as  a  guide  to  our  answer,  we 
obviously  confine  ourselves  to  the  very  partial  presenta- 
tion of  the  subject  which  any  one  parable  suggests.  But 
we  have  excellent  precedent  for  using  a  parable,  and  if 
it  furnishes  us  with  only  a  few  glimpses  of  the  vastest 


Refreshment  6 

of  all  themes,  it  may  render  those  glimpses  more  clear 
and  intelligible. 

Well,  then,  to  our  parable.  Those  who  are  familiar 
with  the  sources  of  the  Hudson  Eiver  in  the  Adirondacks 
know  it  first  as  a  tiny  brook  which  supplies  them  with 
a  cool  drink  as  they  toil  up  the  tallest  mountain  in  the 
state.  Believing  people  find  religion  refreshing.  To  be- 
gin with  a  few  well-known  utterances  of  the  Bible,  Jere- 
miah speaks  of  God  as  "the  Fountain  of  living  waters"; 
and  when,  in  a  despondent  mood,  he  fears  that  he  will 
miss  the  usual  renewal  of  spirit,  he  thinks  of  the  water- 
courses of  Palestine  which  dry  up  in  summer  to  the  dis- 
appointment of  expectant  travelers,  and  asks :  "Wilt  Thou 
indeed  be  unto  me  as  a  deceitful  brook,  as  waters  that 
fail  ?"  The  best  loved  Psalm  runs :  "He  leadeth  mc  beside 
the  still  waters.  He  restoreth  my  soul."  Another  psalm- 
ist employs  the  same  figure  of  speech:  "Thou  shalt  make 
them  drink  of  the  river  of  Thy  pleasures.  For  with  Thee 
is  the  fountain  of  life."  Still  another,  according  to  the 
text  used  by  our  English  translators,  pictures  a  company 
of  singing  and  dancing  worshipers,  saying:  "All  my 
springs  are  in  Thee."  Jesus  took  up  the  metaphor  in  His 
conversation  with  the  woman  at  the  well  in  Sychar  about 
living  water,  and  in  His  saying  at  Jerusalem:  "If  any 
man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me  and  drink."  And  on 
the  final  page  of  the  Bible  stands  the  gracious  invitation : 
"And  let  him  that  is  athirst  come.  And  whosoever  will, 
let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely."  These  religious 
men  (and  one  might  multiply  similar  sayings  from  both 
Old  and  New  Testaments)  found  their  contacts  with  the 
Invisible  reviving. 


6  What  Is  Tiieee  ix  Religion? 

It  is  not  a  common  opinion  to-day  that  religion  is  re- 
freshing. Fellowship  with  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth 
is  looked  on  as  sohering,  rendering  a  man  serions-minded, 
conscientious,  burdened  with  the  wrongs  and  woes  of 
mankind,  and  awed  with  the  momentous  issues  which 
hang  upon  his  own  dealings  with  good  and  evil.  And  it 
certainly  should  have  this  solemnizing  result,  for  in  re- 
ligion only  that  can  help  us  before  which  we  how,  but 
Biblical  believers  found  it  also  exhilarating.  They  spoke 
of  going  unto  God  their  "exceeding  Joy,"  and  bade  one 
another  "Rejoice  in  the  Lord  alway."  Both  because  out- 
siders mistake  its  essential  character,  and  because  insiders 
often  fail  to  realize  what  is  theirs,  a  widespread  protest 
has  called  the  Christian  faith  depressing.  The  brilliant 
French  novelist,  George  Sand,  speaks  wearily  of  "the 
Deity  of  the  crucifix."  Swinburne  puts  his  feelings  on 
the  lips  of  a  pagan  addressing  Christ  after  Christianity 
had  been  officially  proclaimed  at  Rome : 

"Thou  hast  conquered,  O  pale  Galilean;  the  world  has 
grown  grey  from  Thy  breath." 

Ibsen  makes  the  Emperor  Julian  apostatize  from  a  faith 
which  robs  life  of  its  zest  and  thrill :  "To  thee  I  make  my 
offering,  O  Dionysus,  God  of  Ecstasy,  who  dost  lift  up 
the  souls  of  mortals  out  of  abasement."  Undoubtedly  the 
French-woman  familiar  with  Roman  Christianity,  and 
the  Englishman  and  Scandinavian  brought  up  among 
Protestants,  had  some  reason  for  their  complaint  that  re- 
ligion, as  they  had  seen  it,  supplied  its  votaries  with  no 
gayety  of  soul. 


Refreshment  7 

But  had  they  listened  to  contemporaries  compelled  by 
skepticism  to  abandon  Christian  faith,  they  might  have 
heard  them  lamenting  a  loss  of  vitality.  Ernest  Renan, 
destined  for  the  Roman  priesthood  and  led  out  of  the 
Catholic  Church  by  doubts,  confesses :  "Since  Christian- 
ity is  not  true,  nothing  interests  me  or  appears  worthy  of 
my  attention."  'No  substitute  ever  takes  the  place  of  the 
discarded  religion  in  his  enthusiasm,  and  the  best  work 
of  his  life  is  done  upon  studies  connected  with  the  Bible. 
With  a  somewhat  similar  mental  experience,  Edmond 
Scherer,  a  Protestant,  writes:  "So  I  see  myself  carried 
away  by  my  intellectual  convictions  towards  a  future  that 
inspires  in  me  neither  interest  nor  confidence."  About 
the  same  time,  in  England,  John  Addington  Symonds 
complains  of  his  unbelieving  state  of  mind,  and  comments : 
"Such  skepticism  is  like  a  blighting  wind :  nothing  thrives 
beneath  it.  How  can  a  man  who  has  not  made  up  his 
mind  about  the  world  and  immortality,  who  seeks  and 
cannot  find  God,  care  for  politics,  for  instance  ?"  And 
on  our  side  of  the  Atlantic,  one  of  Yale's  foremost  grad- 
uates, the  poet  Edward  Rowland  Sill,  who  had  abandoned 
his  plan  of  entering  the  ministry,  wrote  to  a  classmate: 
"People  think  that  a  thinking  man's  speculations  about 
religion  interfere  with  his  daily  life  very  little — but 
how  certain  conclusions  do  take  the  shine  out  of  one's 
existence."  These  men  of  isad  lucidity  of  soul  looked 
forth  on  an  overcast  world,  where  nothing  sparkled,  and 
found  the  heart  for  vigorous  living  gone  from  them. 

Or  had  these  who  condemn  Christian  faith  as  banish- 
ing  life's  zest  listened  to  appreciative  estimates  of  an 
artist,  so  little  Christian  by  personal  conviction  as  Goethe, 


8  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

thej  would  have  found  him  employing  religion  to  recall 
his  best  known  character  from  suicide.  Faust,  hopeless  of 
probing  nature's  secrets,  oppressed  with  the  misery  and 
paltriness  of  man's  lot,  is  about  to  take  the  poisoned  gob- 
let when  he  hears  the  Chorus  welcoming  Easter  morning 
with  the  hymn:  "Christ  is  arisen!"  It  takes  him  back 
to  his  earlier  and  more  believing  days: 

Once  Heavenly  Love  sent  down  a  burning  kiss 

Upon  my  brow,  in  Sabbath  silence  holy; 

And,  filled  with  mystic  presage,  chimed  the  church-bell 

slowly, 
And  prayer  dissolved  me  in  a  fervent  bliss. 
A  sweet  uncomprehended  yearning 
Drove  forth  my  feet  through  woods  and  meadows  free, 
And,  while  a  thousand  tears  were  burning, 
I  felt  a  world  arise  for  me. 

These  chants,  to  youth  and  all  its  sports  appealing. 
Proclaimed  the  Spring's  rejoicing  holiday; 
And  memory  holds  me  now  with  childhood's  feeling 
Back  from  the  last,  the  solemn  way. 
Sound  on,  ye  hymns  of  Heaven,  so  sweet  and  mild, 
My  tears  gush  forth :  the  Earth  takes  back  her  child ! 

Without  question  life  is  a  fatiguing  affair,  in  which 
idealists  are  disillusioned,  enthusiasts  bored  into  cynics, 
and  the  most  indomitable  souls  suffer  the  slings  and  ar- 
rows of  outrageous  fortune.  Religion  frequently  seems 
to  make  it  a  sadder  and  more  impossible  undertaking.  The 
Christian  has  a  loftier  standard  for  himself  and  for 
society,  and  if  the  lower  ideals  of  his  neighbors  are  unat- 
tainable, he  is  more  surely  doomed  to  perpetual  failure 
and   discouragement.      Contact   with   Christ   softens   his 


Refreshment  9 

sympathies  and  sensitizes  his  conscience,  so  that  men's 
woes  and  his  own  iniquities  become  more  painful.  When 
he  places  the  cross  in  the  center  of  his  outlook,  he  is  aware 
that  the  same  forces  which  accomplished  the  fell  disaster 
at  Golgotha  are  still  active;  and  for  him  there  is  a  dark- 
ness over  all  the  earth  where  a  loving  God  is  ever  in 
anguish  with  and  for  His  sinning  children.  The  believer 
is  not  spared  the  strains  and  disheartenments  of  other  men, 
and  his  fellowship  with  Christ  both  immeasurably  in- 
creases his  sense  of  responsibility  and  his  consciousness 
of  his  own  unworthiness.  "What  Christian  can  view  the 
world  of  our  time  with  its  brutalities  surviving  from  a 
long  obsolete  past,  with  its  age-old  hatreds  fanned  into  in- 
tenser  flame  by  the  gales  of  passion  which  have  swept  over 
our  generation,  with  its  industrial  injustices  and  racial 
antipathies,  with  animalism  thinly  veiled  in  much  that 
passes  for  amusing,  and  with  countless  absurdities  still 
taken  seriously  by  an  unthinking  and  stupid  public,  with- 
out raising  the  impatient  cry:  "O  Lord,  how  long?" 
There  often  appears  to  be  a  cruel  perversity  in  the  uni- 
verse which  cuts  off  promising  careers,  allows  the  well- 
meaning  unwittingly  to  work  harm,  couples  clever  brains 
with  an  unscrupulous  conscience  and  a  kind  heart  with 
a  dull  head,  and  into  the  most  wisely  contrived  and  lov- 
ingly intentioncd  plan  introduces  an  unsuspected  factor 
to  complicate  and  defeat  it.  Again  and  again  frank  be- 
lievers feel  disposed  to  tell  the  Controller  of  events: 
"Thou  hast  showed  Thy  people  hard  things:  Thou  hast 
made  us  to  drink  the  wine  of  staggering."  Our  fellow- 
mortals  are  frequently  a  bitter  disappointment.  Some 
whom  we  love  and  respect,  as  Hamlet  had  his  mother, 


10  "What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

display  a  coarseness  or  a  disloyalty  of  which  we  had  not 
dreamed,  and  then 

How  weary,  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable 
Seem  to  us  all  the  uses  of  this  world ! 

The  littleness  of  men — the  trifles  which  amuse  them,  their 
pettiness  in  their  virtues  and  in  their  vices — causes  us 
to  disparage  humanity  as  a  race  of  Liliputians. 

For  goodness  all  ignoble  seems 

Ungenerous  and  small. 
And  the  holy  are  so  wearisome, 

Their  very  virtues  pall. 

And  of  all  mankind  none  tire  and  bore  us  like  ourselves. 
Back  of  all  our  difficulties  with  circumstances,  and  behind 
all  our  disagreements  with  people,  we  discover  a  chronic 
offender  who  is  chargeable  with  ahnost  every  blunder  and 
implicated  in  every  folly  which  brings  us  defeat  and  un- 
happiness.  We  may  be  sick  of  the  world  and  of  men, 
but  we  are  more  sick  of  ourselves. 

And  the  first  effect  of  religion,  like  that  of  some  medi- 
cines, may  be  to  make  us  feel  sicker  yet.  Many  persons 
take  their  religion  in  such  small  doses  that  they  never  ex- 
perience more  than  this  first  result.  Their  acquaintance 
with  God  in  Christ  is  just  enough  to  increase  their  dis- 
relish for  the  world  and  people  and  themselves.  That 
disgust  is  of  itself  an  advantage:  it  means  a  growth  in 
conscience.  One  cannot  but  honor  disgusted  men  as  they 
grimly  combat  intolerable  conditions,  lay  themselves  out 
to  serve  people  to  whom  they  are  drawn  by  no  liking,  and 
take  themselves  sternly  in  hand.     But  they  are  far  re- 


Refreshment  11 

moved  from  those  who  with  joy  draw  water  out  of  the 
wells  of  salvation.  Mr.  Birrell,  in  his  life  of  Charlotte 
Bronte,  describes  her  religion  as  a  "robust  Church  of 
Englandism,  made  up  of  cleanliness,  good  works  and 
hatred  of  humbug — all  admirable  things  certainly,  but 
not  specifically  religious."  And  he  remarks  of  the  bril- 
liant daughters  in  that  Yorkshire  rectory  that  "alone 
amongst  the  sisters  Anne  had  enough  religion  to  give  her 
pleasure." 

"Enough  religion  to  give  her  pleasure" — it  is  its  pos- 
session in  insufficient  quantities  which  has  given  the  false 
impression  that  it  is  not  refreshing.  "When  men  have 
enough  of  it,  they  find  it  as  reviving  as  a  mountain-brook. 
Old  Franz  Joseph  Haydn  told  Caprani  that  "at  the 
thought  of  God  his  heart  leaped  for  joy,  and  he  could  not 
help  his  music  doing  the  same."  And  from  that  glad 
spirit  came  the  best  known  interpretations  of  "The  Crea- 
tion" and  "The  Seasons." 

Religion  affects  men's  physical  and  mental  condition. 
The  publication  of  William  James'  Letters  disclosed  one 
of  the  most  striking  cases,  reported  in  his  Edinburgh  lec- 
tures as  from  a  correspondent,  to  be  an  account  of  his 
own  experience.  When  he  was  twenty-eight  or  there- 
abouts, he  found  himself  in  wretched  health,  with  no  con- 
genial task  for  which  his  strength  was  adequate,  and  tor- 
tured with  philosophic  questions.  He  was  obsessed  with 
a  haunting  fear  of  existence  and  a  horror  of  ending  his 
days  in  a  lunatic  asylum. 


"In  general,  I  dreaded,"  he  says,  "to  be  left  alone.     I 
remember  wondering  how  other  people  could  live,  how  I 


12  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

myself  had  ever  lived,  so  unconscious  of  that  pit  of  in- 
security beneath  the  surface  of  life.  My  mother,  in  par- 
ticular, a  very  cheerful  person,  seemed  to  me  a  perfect 
paradox  in  her  imconsciousness  of  danger,  which  you  may 
well  believe  I  was  very  careful  not  to  disturb  by  revela- 
tions of  my  own  state  of  mind."  His  terror,  he  tells  us, 
was  "so  pervasive  and  powerful,  that,  if  I  had  not  clung 
to  scripture-texts  like  'The  eternal  God  is  my  refuge,  etc.. 
Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy-laden,  etc., 
I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life,  etc.,'  I  think  I  should 
have  grown  really  insane." 

There  speaks  a  man  ill  in  body  and  mind  kept  going  by 
religion. 

I^ow  that  we  have  this  chapter  in  Professor  James'  per- 
sonal experience,  we  read  with  added  interest  the  para- 
graph in  which  he  says  to  his  Scottish  audience : 

"There  is  a  state  of  mind  known  to  religious  men,  but 
to  no  others,  in  which  the  will  to  assert  ourselves  and  hold 
our  own  has  been  displaced  by  a  willingness  to  close  our 
mouths  and  be  as  nothing  in  the  floods  and  water-spouts 
of  God.  In  this  state  of  mind,  what  we  most  dreaded  has 
become  the  habitation  of  our  safety,  and  the  hour  of  our 
moral  death  has  turned  into  our  spiritual  birthday.  The 
time  for  tension  in  our  soul  is  over,  and  that  of  happy 
relaxation,  of  calm  deep  breathing,  of  an  eternal  present 
with  no  discordant  future  to  be  anxious  about,  has  ar- 
rived. Fear  is  not  held  in  abeyance  as  it  is  by  mere  mo- 
rality; it  is  positively  expunged  and  washed  away." 

During  the  Influenza  Epidemic  of  1918,  the  head  of  a 
nurses'  training-school  in  a  large  city  hospital,  with  many 
of  her  usual  force  in  France,  found  herself  obliged  to 
work  twenty  hours  out  of  twenty-four,  and  at  the  end  of 


Refreshment  13 

two  weeks  she  was  so  worn  out  that  one  Saturday  night 
she  said  to  herself:  "I  must  consult  a  nerve-specialist, 
or  .  .  ."  (and  she  did  not  know  why  she  suggested  the 
other  alternative,  for  she  had  not  attended  religious  serv- 
ices in  years)  "or  go  to  church."  The  next  evening 
towards  eight  o'clock  one  of  her  nurses  saw  her  slipping 
out  of  the  hospital  and  protested  that  she  ought  to  go  to 
bed;  hut  she  walked  a  few  blocks  to  a  neighboring  church, 
had  the  current  of  her  thought  directed  by  the  worship 
into  a  new  channel,  felt  herself  uplifted,  calmed,  renewed, 
and  she  returned  to  her  work  with  a  freshness  of  spirit 
and  a  repaired  will  for  work. 

Religion  restores  the  morale  for  life.  We  mentioned  the 
experience  of  weariness  in  the  struggle  for  ideals,  which 
gives  Christians  a  disgust  with  the  universe.  Matthew 
Arnold  speaks  of  the  first  followers  of  Christ  as  "drawing 
from  the  spiritual  world  a  source  of  joy  so  abundant  that 
it  ran  over  upon  the  material  world  and  transfigured  it." 
The  !N'ew  Testament  for  all  its  stress  and  strain,  its  fight- 
ing without  and  fears  within,  is  a  jubilant  book.  ITo  men 
have  ever  said  harsher  things  in  condemnation  of  an  evil 
world  than  the  Christian  leaders  throughout  the  centuries ; 
but  they  are  never  disheartened  for  long.  Their  faith 
keeps  them  in  high  spirits.  In  the  Second  Century  Clem- 
ent of  Alexandria  writes :  "Holding  festival  in  our  whole 
life,  persuaded  that  God  is  on  every  side  present,  we  cul- 
tivate our  fields  praising,  we  sail  the  sea  singing."  In  the 
Thirteenth  Century  Francis  of  Assisi  asserts:  "The 
servants  of  God  arc,  like  jugglers,  intended  to  revive  the 
hearts  of  men  and  lead  them  into  spiritual  joy."  In  the 
Sixteenth,  Martin  Luther  declares:  "It  is  impossible  for 


14  "What  Is  There  i^^  Religion  ? 

one  who  hopes  in  God  not  to  rejoice;  even  if  the  world 
falls  to  wreck,  he  will  be  overwhelmed  undismayed  under 
the  ruins."  And  in  our  own  day  an  essayist  takes  up 
this  same  strain,  and  tells  the  Twentieth  Century :  "Wher- 
ever you  have  belief,  you  will  have  hilarity.  If  we  are 
to  be  truly  gay,  we  must  believe  that  there  is  some  eternal 
gayety  in  the  nature  of  things.  The  thing  called  high 
spirits  is  possible  only  to  the  spiritual."  Behind  events 
which  go  bitterly  wrong  and  circumstances  which  seem 
unconscionably  unresponsive  to  every  effort  to  better  them, 
faith  has  sight  of  Him  who  is  primarily  accountable  for 
the  ongoings  of  the  universe,  and  whispers :  "The  Crea- 
tor of  the  ends  of  the  earth  f  ainteth  not,  neither  is  weary." 
He  is  tirelessly  at  work  on  a  refractory  world ;  if  He  must 
wait  His  time,  He  lacks  neither  patience  nor  persistency; 
He  will  not  fail  nor  be  discouraged,  and  He  is  able  to 
accomplish  His  goodwill.  Believers  know  how  to  be  still ; 
to  remind  themselves  that  God  lives  and  rules ;  that  what 
He  stands  they  can  endure;  and  that  as  He  perseveres 
they  must  bear  Him  company.  They  look  for  the  appar- 
ently impossible;  and  if  it  accords  with  the  mind  of 
Christ,  they  say  quietly:  "Behold,  it  shall  come  to  pass." 
Religion  repairs  our  weariness  with  our  fellow-mortals. 
Faber  voiced  a  common  mood  in  his  lines,  entitled,  Low 
Spirits: 

Fever,  and  fret,  and  aimless  stir, 

And  disappointed  strife. 
All  chafing  unsuccessful  things, 

Make  up  the  sum  of  life. 

Love  adds  anxiety  to  toil. 
And  sameness  doubles  cares, 


Refreshment  15 

While  one  unbroken  chain  of  work 
The  flagging  temper  wears. 

The  light  and  air  are  chilled  with  smoke; 

The  streets  resound  with  noise; 
And  the  soul  sinks  to  see  its  peers 

Chasing  their  joyless  joys. 

And  he  passes  to  a  less  common  mood,  but  to  one  familiar 
to  those  who  seriously  use  their  religion. 

Sweet  thought  of  God!  now  do  thy  work 

As  thou  hast  done  before ; 
Wake  up,  and  tears  will  wake  with  thee, 

And  the  dull  mood  be  o'er. 

The  very  thinking  of  the  thought, 

Without  or  praise  or  prayer, 
Gives  light  to  know,  and  life  to  do, 

And  marvelous  strength  to  bear. 

Oh,  there  is  music  in  that  thought 

Unto  a  heart  unstrung. 
Like  sweet  bells  at  the  evening-time 

Most  musically  rung. 

A  contemporary,  who  loathed  Father  Faber's  ecclesias- 
ticism,  bears  witness  to  the  same  experience  of  renewal 
when,  out  of  sorts  with  the  obtuseness  of  conscience  and 
hardness  of  heart  of  men  who  should  have  been  better, 
he  reminds  himself  of  God.  In  the  Diary  of  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury  for  May,  1854,  are  the  following  entries: 

"Great  anxiety  about  Bill  for  relief  of  Chimney  Sweep- 
ers. Have  suffered  actual  distress  through  solicitude  for 
prevention  of  these  horrid  cruelties.  .  .  . 


16  What  Is  Theee  i:n-  Religion? 

"The  Government  in  the  House  of  Commons  threw  out 
the  Chimney  Sweepers  Bill,  and  said  not  a  word  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  wretched  children,  nor  of  desire  to  amend 
the  law.  .  .  . 

''Very  sad  and  low  about  the  loss  of  the  Sweeps  Bill.  .  .  . 
The  Collar  of  the  Garter  might  have  choked  me;  I  have 
not,  at  least,  this  or  any  other  Government  favor  against 
me  as  a  set-off  to  their  insolence  and  oppression.  I  must 
persevere,  and  by  God's  help  so  I  will ;  for  however  dark 
the  view,  however  contrary  to  all  argument  the  attempt, 
however  painful  and  revolting  the  labor,  I  see  no  Scrip- 
ture reason  for  desisting;  and  the  issue  of  every  toil  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  Almighty." 

And  when  one  has  to  do  with  some  petty,  cranky,  touchy 
individual,  who  tries  one's  nerves  and  strains  one's  en- 
durance, there  is  no  refreshment  comparable  to  the  recol- 
lection of  Calvary.  From  its  summit  flows  a  river  of  de- 
votion dovni  to  this  unpromising  man;  and  as,  with  St. 
Paul,  we  call  him  "the  brother  for  whose  sake  Christ 
died,"  we  are  renewed  with  the  love  that  beareth,  believeth, 
hopeth,  endureth  all  and  never  faileth. 

Religion  restores  a  man's  respect  for  himself.  All  of 
us  know  times  when  we  cannot  find  names  bad  enough  to 
characterize  what  we  are  in  our  own  eyes.  We  speak  of 
ourselves  as  "beasts."  A  psalmist  once  used  that  epithet 
of  himself:  "So  brutish  was  I  and  ignorant;  I  was  as  a 
beast  before  Thee."  And  the  particular  kind  of  animal 
he  had  in  mind  was  a  thick-skinned,  clumsy,  hideous  crea- 
ture, like  the  hippopotamus  (Behemoth).  The  biog- 
raphies of  the  saints  of  every  communion  contain  uncom- 
plimentary opinions  of  themselves ;  and  it  is  their  own 
awkwardness  constantly  foiling  their  desire  to  be  service- 


Refeeshment  17 

able,  their  immanageableness  even  in  the  hands  of  God 
like  hulking,  stupid  brutes,  their  personal  unattractive- 
ness  as  representatives  of  the  Divine,  that  disgusts  them. 
"I  was  as  a  beast  before  Thee.  ISTevertheless  I  am  con- 
tinually with  Thee:  Thou  hast  holden  my  right  hand." 
To  think  of  God's  unfailing  presence,  evidencing  His 
continuing  regard,  renews  self-respect. 

And  even  more  remarkable  is  the  refreshment  men  have 
found  in  their  religion  when  wearied  with  God.  A  French 
archbishop,  in  a  letter  of  spiritual  counsel,  advises  his 
correspondent :  "If  you  are  bored  by  God,  tell  Him  that 
He  bores  you."  And  instinctively  believing  souls  go  to 
God  in  an  appeal  against  His  own  dealings  with  them, 
and  find  their  spirits  heartened.  Job's  speeches  are  the 
classic  instance,  in  which  this  sufferer  turns  from  the  God 
who  seems  to  be  his  enemy  to  the  same  God  whom  he  can- 
not help  feeling  to  be  on  his  side.  Against  God  he  strength- 
ens himself  in  God.  One  finds  a  similar  experience  in 
two  tragic  scenes.  Euripides,  in  a  sublime  attempt  to 
bring  home  to  his  countrymen  the  horrors  of  war,  pictures 
the  Trojan  women  after  the  sack  of  their  city,  enslaved 
by  their  conquerors  and  about  to  be  carried  away  from 
their  loved  native-land  to  Greece.  He  shows  us  their 
woeful  figures  sitting  disconsolate  among  the  rains  while 
their  captors  announce  to  whom  each  is  allotted;  and  he 
makes  his  climax  of  sorrow  that  heart-rending  scene  when 
Hector's  little  son,  Astyanax,  is  torn  from  his  mother's 
embrace  and  flung  from  the  walls.  The  old  grandmother, 
Hecuba,  looks  out  on  the  ships  lying  at  anchor,  and  re- 
calls how  they  breast  the  storms  until  at  last 


18  "What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

Too  strong  breaks  the  o'erwhelming  sea:  lo,  then 

Thej  cease,  and  yield  them  up  as  broken  men 

To  fate  and  the  wild  waters.     Even  so 

I  in  my  many  sorrows  bear  me  low, 

Nor  curse,  nor  strive  that  other  things  may  be. 

The  great  wave  rolled   from   God   hath   conquered   me. 

And  while  acknowledging  the  calamity  as  from  God,  she 
has  tried  to  pray,  but  the  gods  appear  helpless: 

Ye  Gods.  .  .  .  Alas!  why  call  on  things  so  weak 
For  aid  ?  Yet  there  is  something  that  doth  seek, 
Crying,  for  God,  when  one  of  us  hath  woe. 

And  she  addresses  her  prayer: 

Thou  deep  Base  of  the  world,  and  Thou  high  Throne 
Above  the  world,  whoe'er  Thou  art,  unknown 
And  hard  of  surmise.  Chain  of  Things  that  be, 
Or  Reason  of  our  Reason;  God,  to  Thee. 
I  lift  my  praise. 

It  may  be  reading  too  much  into  the  drama  of  doubting 
Euripides  to  see  these  women  in  their  unrelieved  gloom, 
drawing  any  renewal  from  religion;  but  it  is  significant 
that  they  try  to  find  comfort  in  God  and  that  the  prayer 
becomes  praise.  We  set  beside  these  desolate  women  out- 
side the  walls  of  sacked  Ilium  another  tragic  group  of 
women  outside  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  watching  afar  off 
a  Sufferer  in  mortal  agony  upon  a  shameful  cross  between 
two  thieves,  while  His  mother  stands  beneath  Him,  broken 
with  sorrow.  The  scene  in  the  Gospels  gives  the  same 
sense  of  cruel  disaster,  the  same  suffering  of  the  innocent 
for  the  guilty,  the  same  turning  to  God  in  puzzled  ques- 


Refreshment  19 

tioning  at  His  dealings:  "My  God,  My  God,  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me  ?"  And  here  surely  we  find  the  re- 
freshment that  religion  brings,  the  renewal  in  God  against 
God.  The  Sufferer  waiting  upon  God  renews  His  strength, 
and  goes  triumphantly  through  death. 

And  religion  is  a  source  of  refreshment  always  at  hand. 
It  is  not  like  mountain  air  or  sea  breezes  to  which  one 
must  travel;  it  is  "the  brook  in  the  way"  of  which  men 
drink  and  lift  up  the  head.  You  will,  perhaps,  forgive 
a  ISTew  Yorker  another  local  allusion,  if  I  refer  to  lines  in 
which  a  minor  poet  puts  this  accessibility  of  the  reviving 
water  of  religion,  entitled  On  a  Subway  Express. 

I  who  have  lost  the  stars,  the  sod, 
For  chilling  pave  and  cheerless  night. 

Have  made  my  meeting-place  with  God 
A  new  and  nether  night. 

A  figment  in  the  crowded  dark, 
Where  men  sit  muted  by  the  roar, 

I  ride  upon  the  whirring  Spark 
Beneath  the  city's  floor. 

You  that  'neath  country  skies  can  pray. 
Scoff  not  at  me — the  city  clod; — 

My  only  respite  of  the  Day 
Is  this  wild  ride — with  God, 

We  have  been  speaking  of  the  fellowship  of  God  as 
refreshment;  many  believers  go  further  and  call  it  stim- 
ulant. In  pre-christian  faiths,  lower  and  higher,  com- 
munion with  the  unseen  excites  and  releases  the  emotions, 
and  exalts  men  as  with  the  wine  of  gladness.     Plutarch 


20  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

has  left  us  a  description  of  the  effect  of  the  cult  with 
which  he  was  familiar : 

"Nothing  gives  us  more  joy  than  what  we  see  and  do 
ourselves  in  divine  service,  when  we  carry  the  emblems, 
or  join  in  the  sacred  dance,  or  stand  by  at  the  sacrifice 
or  initiation.  ...  It  is  when  the  soul  most  believes  and 
perceives  that  the  god  is  present,  that  she  most  puts  from 
her  pain  and  fear  and  anxiety,  and  gives  herself  up  to  joy, 
yes,  even  as  far  as  intoxication  and  laughter  and  merri- 
ment. ...  In  sacred  processions  and  sacrifices  not  only 
the  old  man  and  the  old  woman,  nor  the  poor  and  lowly, 
but  'the  thick-legged  drudge  that  sways  her  at  the  mill,' 
and  household  slaves  and  hirelings  are  uplifted  by  joy  and 
triumph.  Rich  men  and  kings  have  always  their  own 
banquets  and  feasts — but  the  feasts  in  the  temples  and  at 
initiations,  when  men  seem  to  touch  the  divine  most 
nearly  in  their  thought  with  honor  and  worship,  have  a 
pleasure  and  a  charm  far  more  exceeding.  And  in  this 
no  man  shares  who  has  renounced  the  belief  in  Providence. 
For  it  is  not  abundance  of  wine,  nor  the  roasting  of  meat, 
that  gives  the  joy  in  the  festivals,  but  also  a  good  hope,  and 
a  belief  that  the  god  is  present  and  gracious,  and  accepts 
what  is  being  done  with  a  friendly  mind." 

There  is  a  devout  man's  testimony  to  the  stimulus  which 
his  feelings  receive  in  fellowship  with  Deity.  And  the 
New  Testament  thinks  of  the  filling  with  the  Spirit  as  a 
substitute  not  for  water,  but  for  wine.  To  view  life  as 
Jesus  saw  it  ruled  by  the  heart  of  a  Father  like  Himself, 
to  be  caught  b^^  His  vision  of  a  world  remade  to  conform 
to  that  Father's  mind,  to  be  baptized  into  His  passion  to 
bring  that  vision  to  pass,  and  to  look  forward  confidently 
to  sharing  its  realization  forever  in  the  Father's  many 
mansions,  is  not  only  to  be  cooled  and  freshened  in  one's 


Refreshment  21 

exhaustion,  but  to  be  set  a-tingle  to  go,  despite  every  fa- 
tigue and  discouragement,  and  keep  devoting  one's  last 
ounce  of  energy  to  a  cause  which  claims  us  altogether. 
Bliss  Carman  has  voiced  this  exhilarating  quality  in  re- 
ligion : 

Lord  of  my  heart's  elation, 
Spirit  of  things  unseen.  .  .  . 
Be  Thou  my  exaltation 
Or  fortitude  of  mien. 
Lord  of  the  world's  elation, 
Thou  Breath  of  things  unseen. 

The  many  instances  quoted  of  men  to  whom  faith 
opened  the  Fountain  of  life  have  surely  served  to  illus- 
trate a  final  point  that  religion  makes  the  believer  him- 
self a  refreshing  person.  "He  that  believeth  on  Me,  from 
within  him  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  water."  In  a  dis- 
illusioned period,  when  hearts  are  sick  with  hope  de- 
ferred, when  the  frightful  sacrifices  of  a  world  bled  nigh 
to  death  have  issued  in  paltry  results,  when  the  most 
ardent  appear  jaded,  he  whose  fellowship  with  God  keeps 
him  of  good  heart,  confident  that  all  needed  resources  are 
at  hand  in  the  most  near  Lord  of  all,  seems  like  a  stream 
from  the  everlasting  hills  to  his  thirsty  and  drooping  com- 
rades. In  a  shifting  world,  where  opinions  are  in  flux, 
customs  changing,  and  restlessness  is  an  infection  in  the 
air,  he  who  is  steadfastly  sure  of  God  towers  like  a  giant 
rock,  and  men  shelter  themselves  beside  him.  Religion, 
provided  a  man  has  enough  of  it,  makes  him  "as  rivers  of 
water  in  a  dry  place,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a 
weary  land." 


CHAPTEK  II 

CLEANSING 

OK  summer  days  along  the  Hudson's  upper  reaches 
one  sees  soiled  trampers  going  in  for  a  cleansing 
dip,  and  as  the  river  sweeps  by  N"ew  York  City 
hundreds  of  sewers  discharge  their  filth  into  its  waters 
to  be  carried  out  into  the  purifying  salt  ocean.  The  river 
is  a  means  of  cleanliness  and  health.  So  men  find  that 
their  contacts  with  God  wash  mind  and  conscience,  and 
wherever  the  Christian  ideal  goes  throughout  our  world, 
the  social  life  is  purified. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  this  cleansing  effect  of  religion ;  and 
in  quoting  its  witness,  one  is  not  slighting  similar  testi- 
mony from  other  faiths,  but  using  its  passages  as  sum- 
ming up  the  highest  and  most  widely  tested  religious  ex- 
periences of  mankind.  "Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet, 
they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow."  "I  will  sprinkle  clean 
water  upon  you,  and  ye  shall  be  clean :  from  all  your  filthi- 
ness,  and  from  all  your  idols,  will  I  cleanse  you.  A  new 
heart  also  will  I  give  you,  and  a  new  spirit  will  I  put 
within  you."  "He  is  like  a  refiner's  fire  and  like  fullers' 
soap."  The  l^ew  Testament  presents  "the  Lamb  of  God, 
who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

N'o  one  ever  exposed  the  polluting  factors  resident  in 
human  nature  more  clearly  than  Jesus :  "For  from  with- 
in, out  of  the  heart  of  man,  evil  thoughts  proceed,  fornica- 
tions, thefts,  murders,  adulteries,  covetings,  wickednesses, 

22 


Cleanshstg  23 

deceit,  lasciviousness,  an  evil  eye,  railing,  pride,  foolish- 
ness; all  these  evil  things  proceed  from  within,  and  de- 
file the  man."  But  He  and  His  followers  were  confident 
that  the  same  heart  of  man  could  be  cleaned  and  made  the 
seat  of  motives  as  purifying  as  these  were  defiling.  Paul 
mentions  a  number  of  the  dirtiest  and  worst  elements  in 
the  notorious  city  of  Corinth,  and  adds :  "Such  were  some 
of  you :  but  ye  were  washed  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  the  Spirit  of  our  God."  The  Gospel  which 
he  proclaims  "renews"  men's  minds.  James  insists  that 
the  genuinely  devout  man  shall  keep  himself  "unspotted 
from  the  world" ;  and  John  announces  that  they  who  walk 
in  the  light  of  Christ  are  cleansed  by  His  blood  from  all 
sin.  There  is  a  graphic  description  of  the  socially  purify- 
ing effect  of  religion  in  Ezekiel's  picture  of  the  magical 
stream,  which  issues  from  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and 
flowing  down  to  the  Dead  Sea  so  heals  its  briny  waters 
that  they  teem  with  fish.  Another  prophet  speaks  of  a 
fountain  opened  in  Jerusalem  for  sin  and  for  unclean- 
ness;  and  the  seer  on  Patmos  portrays  a  great  multitude 
with  robes  washed  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  And 
these  passages,  let  us  remember,  have  become  holy  scrip- 
tures to  millions  because  they  picture  experiences  of  the 
cleansing  by  religion  which  they  themselves  have  in  some 
measure  repeated. 

When  one  turns  from  the  Bible  to  the  writings  of  those 
who  in  the  first  centuries  passed  from  paganism  into  the 
Christian  Church,  one  discovers  these  followers  of  Jesus 
vividly  aware  that  a  transforming  river  is  flowing  in  the 
new  religion  which  has  entered  tha  Roman  world.  The 
philosopher  Justin  writes: 


24  What  Is  There  ii^  Religion? 

"We  who  formerly  delighted  in  sexual  license  now  em- 
brace chastity  alone ;  we  who  once  used  magical  arts  dedi- 
cate ourselves  to  the  good  and  unbegotten  God;  we  who 
valued  above  all  things  the  acquisition  of  wealth  and  pos- 
sessions, now  bring  what  we  have  into  a  common  stock, 
and  distribute  to  every  one  in  need;  we  who  hated  and 
destroyed  one  another,  and  on  account  of  their  manners 
would  not  live  with  men  of  a  different  tribe,  now,  since 
the  coming  of  Christ,  live  familiarly  with  them,  and  pray 
for  our  enemies,  and  endeavor  to  persuade  those  who  hate 
"US  unjustly  to  live  conformably  to  the  good  precepts  of 
Christ." 

The  African  lawyer,  Tertullian,  flings  back  at  the  de- 
tractors of  Christianity  their  own  remarks  about  acquain- 
tances who  have  embraced  the  new  religion:  "Wliat  a 
woman  she  was !  how  wanton !  how  gay !  What  a  young 
blade  he  was !  how  profligate !  how  dissipated ! — they  have 
become  Christians!"  "So,"  he  adds,  "the  hated  name  is 
given  to  reformation  of  character,"  Origen  answers  the 
attacks  of  Celsus,  who  holds  the  usual  opinion  of  a  man 
of  the  world  that  human  nature  cannot  be  altered,  and 
then  charges  Christians  with  peculiarly  vile  iniquities : 

"The  work  of  Jesus  reveals  itself  among  all  mankind 
where  communities  of  God  founded  by  Jesus  exist,  which 
are  composed  of  men  reclaimed  from  a  thousand  vices; 
and  to  this  day  the  name  of  Jesus  can  produce  a  marvel- 
ous meekness  of  spirit  and  complete  change  of  character, 
and  humanity,  and  goodness,  and  gentleness,  in  those  who 
have  honestly  accepted  the  teaching  concerning  God  and 
Christ." 

And  Lactantius,  who  had  spent  years  as  a  teacher,  and 
knew  the  futility  of  trying  to  make  men  over  by  the  vir- 


Cleansing  25 

tuous  precepts  of  the  wisest  sages,  having  late  in  life  be- 
come a  Christian,  says  confidently: 

"Give  me  one  who  is  grasping,  covetous  and  stingy ;  I 
will  presently  hand  him  back  to  you  generous,  and  freely 
giving  his  money  with  full  hands.  Give  me  a  man  who 
is  afraid  of  pain  and  death ;  he  shall  shortly  despise 
crosses,  and  fires,  and  the  torture.  Give  me  one  who  is 
lustful,  an  adulterer,  a  glutton ;  you  shall  soon  see  him 
sober,  chaste,  and  temperate.  A  few  precepts  of  God  so 
entirely  change  the  whole  man,  that  you  would  not  recog- 
nize him  as  the  same." 

Admitting  that  there  may  be  in  these  statements  the  ex- 
aggeration of  the  enthusiastic  devotee,  they  bear  eloquent 
witness  to  the  sense  of  a  cleansing  force  in  the  Christian 
religion.  i 

In  a  society  long  familiar  with  the  ideals  of  Jesus,  we 
are  often  not  aware  of  the  moral  rottenness  from  which 
He  spares  us.  ISTew  Yorkers  seldom  think  of  the  service 
which  the  ceaselessly  flowing  Hudson  renders  our  city ;  its 
cleansing  goes  on  unnoticed.  One  has  to  live  for  a  time 
in  a  non-Christian  land,  become  acquainted  with  family- 
life  in  homes  unhallowed  by  the  Gospel,  watch  the  plight 
of  woman,  see  how  cheap  human  life  is  held  and  what 
cruelties  are  inflicted  without  compunction,  find  vices 
which  occur  rarely  and  only  among  the  most  degenerate 
of  our  population  accepted  as  matters  of  course,  breathe 
in  an  atmosphere  unvitalized  by  the  breezes  which  flow 
from  the  hillsides  of  Galilee  and  from  Calvary,  to  ap- 
preciate what  Christianity  has  done  for  our  society.  An 
eminent   university    professor,    himself    (I    understand) 


26  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

without  avowed  Christian  loyalty,  after  lecturing  exten- 
sively in  China  is  reported  to  have  said  that  in  America 
he  had  taken  too  much  for  granted.  He  found  in  a  non- 
Christian  land  an  absence  of  that  moral  background  to 
which  he  had  been  accustomed  to  appeal.  Although  many 
thousands  of  our  people  profess  no  regard  for  Christ  and 
never  connect  their  principles  with  Him,  we  are  as  much 
indebted  for  our  moral  health  to  the  presence  of  His 
standards,  as  is  ^ew  York  City  for  its  well-being  to  its 
usually  unthought-of  purifying  Hudson. 

What  the  early  leaders  of  the  Church  saw  happening 
about  them,  unbiased  observers  notice  in  the  work  of 
Christian  missions  to-day.  To  scan  the  faces  which  one 
sees  in  a  Chinese  or  Korean  market-place,  and  then  to 
look  into  the  faces  of  a  gathering  of  Christians  in  the 
same  town,  is  to  be  struck  with  the  transfiguring  power 
of  the  Gospel.  Charles  Darwin,  reporting  his  voyage  in 
the  southern  Pacific,  wrote :  "The  lesson  of  the  mission- 
aries is  the  enchanter's  wand.  The  march  of  improve- 
ment consequent  on  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
through  the  South  Seas  probably  stands  by  itself  in  the 
records  of  history."  A  British  ofiicer,  in  an  account  of 
two  African  campaigns  in  the  London  Spectator  some 
years  ago,  introduces  a  word  of  admiration  for  the  work 
of  the  Scotch  Mission  in  the  Shire  Highlands :  "First 
you  must  see  the  negro  boy  in  his  savage  state,  and  then 
see  the  finished  article  as  turned  out  by  the  Blantyre  Mis- 
sion, and  I  think  that  you  will  say  that  truly  the  thing 
is  little  short  of  marvelous — from  a  wild,  unkempt,  sav- 
age urchin,  with  a  rag  for  a  wardrobe,  to  a  pleasant,  self- 
possessed   lad,   who   dresses   in   spotless  white   garments, 


Cleansing  27 

can  read  and  write,  and  conducts  himself  with  quiet  de- 
corum." 

Dr.  Schweitzer,  versatile  musician  and  Biblical  critic, 
who  went  out  as  a  physician  to  Equatorial  Africa,  writes 
of  his  first  impression  of  a  Christian  congregation : 

"As  we  mounted  the  hill  through  the  rows  of  neat  bam- 
boo huts  belonging  to  the  negroes,  the  chapel  doors  opened 
for  service.  We  were  introduced  to  some  of  the  congrega- 
tion and  had  a  dozen  black  hands  to  shake.  What  a  con- 
trast between  these  clean  and  decently  clothed  people  and 
the  blacks  that  we  had  seen  in  the  seaports,  the  only  kind 
of  native  we  had  met  up  to  now !  Even  the  faces  are  not 
the  same.  These  had  a  free  and  yet  modest  look  in  them 
that  cleared  from  my  mind  the  haunting  vision  of  sullen 
and  unwilling  subjection,  mixed  with  insolence,  which 
had  hitherto  looked  at  me  out  of  the  eyes  of  so  many  ne- 
groes." 

One  of  my  own  cherished  memories  is  of  a  visit  to  a  com- 
munity of  earnest  Christians  on  Lake  Biwa  in  Japan, 
composed  of  people  of  varied  stations — students,  farmers, 
a  physician,  an  architect,  an  ex-Buddhist  priest,  and  sev- 
eral interesting  women — who  looked  back  on  their  pre- 
Christian  life  as  essentially  unclean,  and  whose  devotion 
to  Jesus  showed  itself  in  a  thorough-going  consecration 
and  in  a  purity  beyond  that  commonly  insisted  on  among 
American  Christians.  John's  declaration  concerning 
Jesus  is  superbly  confirmed :  the  Lamb  of  God  does  "take 
away"  the  sin  of  the  world.  There  are  plenty  of  faults 
in  the  best  of  Christians,  but  one  has  only  to  read  history 
or  to  observe  the  ways  of  non-Christian  communities  to 
realize  how  many  forms  of  loathsome  evil  disappear  where 


28  What  Is  There  ix  Religion  ? 

men  have  felt,  however  unconsciously,  the  uplifting  and 
shaming  touch  of  Jesus.  Hosts  of  excellent  people  in 
Christendom,  who  consider  themselves  nowise  indebted 
to  Jesus  of  l^azareth,  and  sometimes  speak  slightingly  of 
Him,  have  pure  and  affectionate  homes,  move  in  a  society 
where  there  are  countless  incentives  to  unselfishness,  and 
are  themselves  high-principled,  tender-hearted,  and  keen 
of  conscience,  because  centuries  ago  Christ  lived  and  died, 
and  in  His  life  and  cross  set  flowing  a  river  of  spiritual 
motives  which  has  cleaned  and  vitalized  both  them  and 
their  neighbors.  In  many  non-Christian  communities  the 
small  groups  of  believers  exercise  a  cleansing  influence 
upon  social  standards  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  num- 
bers or  prestige.  The  ideals  which  they  hold,  and  which 
they  illustrate,  set  in  motion  little  rivulets  of  the  Christian 
Spirit  which  purify  the  minds  of  many  who  have  no  per- 
sonal touch  with  Christ.  And  in  long-established  Chris- 
tian societies  the  majority  of  people  are  not  even  exposed 
to  numberless  gross  and  filthy  sins,  which  fiercely  tempt 
men  and  women  without  their  inspirations.  Christ  has 
removed  the  inclination  to  and  taste  for  such  things,  and 
developed  an  instinctive  repugnance  to  them. 

!N'or  can  we  forget  the  cleansing  of  smirched  lives 
arid  the  salvation  of  the  dregs  of  our  own  social 
order  by  the  religion  of  Christ  through  the  ministry 
of  those  who,  like  their  Master,  have  felt  themselves  spe- 
cially commissioned  to  seek  the  lowest  and  the  lost. 
Yachel  Lindsay  has  set  before  us  the  tatterdemalion  group 
who  owed  their  rescue  and  redemption  to  one  such  notable 
ministry  in  his  lines  entitled  General  William  Booth  En- 
ters Into  Heaven: 


Cleansing  29 

Booth  led  boldly  with  his  big  bass  drum. 

Are  you  loashed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamh? 
The  saints  smiled  gravely,  and  they  said,  ''He's  come." 

Are  you  ivashed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb? 
Walking  lepers  followed  rank  on  rank, 
Lurching  bravos  from  the  ditches  dank. 
Drabs  from  the  allej^ways  and  drug-fiends  pale — 
Minds  still  passion-ridden,  soul-powers  frail! 
Vermin-eaten  saints  with  mouldy  breath, 
Unwashed  legions  with  the  ways  of  death — 

Are  you  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb? 

.  .  .  It  was  queer  to  see 

Bull-necked  convicts  with  that  land  made  free! 
.  .  .  Drabs  and  vixens  in  a  flash  made  whole ! 
Gone  was  the  weasel-head,  the  snout,  the  jowl; 
Sages  and  sibyls  now,  and  athletes  clean. 
Rulers  of  empires,  and  of  forests  green ! 

It  is  not  an  overdrawn  picture  of  the  recreating  and  trans- 
figuring power  of  the  Gospel  as  preached  and  applied  by 
spirits  afire  with  earnestness. 

In  outstanding  Christians,  where  the  flow  of  the  Spirit 
is  not  a  trickle  but  a  river,  one  is  usually  aware  of  a 
cleansed  sanctity.  Professor  Masson,  treating  of  the  lit- 
erature of  the  Restoration  period,  calls  attention  to  the 
fastidiousness  in  matters  of  speech  of  John  Bunyan,  the 
tinker.  While  university  men  used  coarse  expressions, 
Bunyan,  a  man  of  the  common  people  and  thrown  with 
the  lowest  for  twelve  years  in  Bedford  gaol,  was  kept  by 
his  religion  from  the  slightest  filthiness  of  utterance  in  an 
age  where  such  cleanliness  of  phrase  was  rare  indeed. 
George  Herbert  attributed  to  his  ideal  country  parson  a 
purity  of  mind  "breaking  out  and  dilating  itself  even  to 


30  What  Is  There  i:n"  Religion"  ? 

his  body,  clothes  and  habitation."  And  this  ideal  was 
realized  in  the  spiritual  impression  of  one  of  the  greatest 
city  preachers  and  pastors,  Dr.  Thomas  Chalmers,  of  whom 
Lord  Rosebery  said  in  a  memorial  address  a  few  years 
ago: 

"He  wrote  enormously,  he  spoke  continually,  he  re- 
vealed his  inner  self  in  every  possible  way;  but  after  his 
first  struggles  and  victory  every  word  that  remains  on 
record  seems  instinct  with  a  pervading,  undoubting,  eager 
Christian  faith.  There  was  an  unconscious  sanctity  about 
him  which  was,  as  it  were,  the  breath  of  his  nostrils;  he 
diffused  it  as  his  breath,  it  was  as  vital  to  him  as  his 
breath.  .  .  .  Here  was  a  man,  bustling,  striving,  organ- 
izing, speaking  and  preaching  with  the  dust  and  fire  of 
the  world  on  his  clothes,  but  carrying  his  shrine  with  him 
everywhere." 

N^or  is  there  any  question  of  the  purifying  effect  such 
devoted  disciples  of  Jesus  exercise.  The  touch  of  so- 
called  Christendom  on  so-called  heathendom  has  been 
often  anything  but  cleansing.  An  Asiatic  seaport,  where 
"West  and  East  mingle  in  trade,  is  invariably  more  vicious 
than  an  interior  city.  In  Dr.  Schweitzer's  volume  already 
quoted  he  mentions  finding  ruins  of  abandoned  huts  on 
the  banks  of  an  African  stream :  "  'When  I  came  out  here 
fifteen  years  ago,'  said  a  trader  who  stood  near  me,  'these 
places  were  all  flourishing  villages.'  'And  why  are  they 
so  no  longer?'  I  asked.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and 
said  in  a  low  voice,  ^L'alcohoV "  But  these  debasing 
group  contacts  only  serve  to  render  more  conspicuous  the 
influence  of  genuine  Christian  individuals.  One  reads 
in  the  biography  of  Li  Hung  Chang  the  impression  made 


Cleansing  31 

upon  that  astute  Oriental  statesman  by  General  Gordon. 
''It  is  a  direct  blessing  from  Heaven,"  he  says,  "the  com- 
ing of  this  British  Gordon.  He  is  superior  in  manner  and 
bearing  to  any  of  the  foreigners  whom  I  have  come  in 
contact  with  and  does  not  show  outwardly  that  conceit 
which  makes  most  of  them  repulsive  in  my  sight."  Pro- 
fessor William  James,  after  spending  months  in  reading 
the  experiences  of  religious  men  and  women  in  prepara- 
tion for  his  Gifford  Lectures,  speaks  of  himself  as  feeling 
"washed  in  better  moral  air." 

A  crystal  clear  brook  discontents  us  with  a  muddy 
stream,  and  Christianity  renders  certain  motives  unclean 
which  would  not  seem  so  apart  from  Christ.  But  dwellers 
beside  discolored  rivers  are  not  displeased  by  their  tainted 
hues  until  they  become  familiar  with  a  pellucid  stream. 
One  often  hears  lamentations  over  the  absence  of  a  sense 
of  sin,  and  the  consequent  lack  of  interest  in  Christianity 
as  a  means  of  cleansing.  Such  bewailers  have  read  little 
history.  Mr.  Lecky  tells  us  that  "no  philosopher  of  an- 
tiquity ever  questioned  that  a  good  man,  reviewing  his 
life,  might  look  upon  it  without  shame  and  even  with 
positive  complacency."  And  he  adds:  "There  is  no  fact 
in  religious  history  more  startling  than  the  radical  change 
that  has  in  this  respect  passed  over  the  character  of  de- 
votion." This  change  has  been  due  to  the  coming  of  the 
Christian  conscience  with  its  new  sensitiveness  to  evil. 
If  one  scans  the  mass  of  testimony  from  many  mission 
fields  contained  in  the  reports  made  at  the  Edinburgh 
Ecumenical  Conference  of  1910,  there  is  scarcely  an  in- 
stance of  any  who  have  come  to  Christ  burdened  with  a 
consciousness  of  iniquity.     That  consciousness  has  devel- 


32  What  Is  There  ix  Religion? 

oped,  if  at  all,  as  a  result  of  contact  with  Him.  The 
Spirit  of  Jesus  both  creates  the  sense  of  evil  and  provides 
the  cleansing.  And  in  that  lies  its  incomparable  value  for 
social  advance. 

Throughout  her  history  the  Church  has  eyed  askance 
the  realm  of  amusements,  and  has  frequently  condemned 
it  as  unclean.  There  have  been,  and  there  still  are,  rea- 
sons for  this  condemnation.  Happily  the  modern  Church 
is  learning  to  discriminate  betvs^een  wholesome  and  un- 
wholesome recreations,  and  to  recognize  that  in  the  sphere 
of  amusements  the  Spirit  of  Christ  exercises  a  purifying 
touch.  Among  leaders  on  the  American  stage  few  of  the 
last  generation  stand  higher  than  Edwin  Booth.  He  was 
open-eyed  to  the  debasing  character  of  many  theatrical 
performances,  and  said  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott : 
"I  never  permit  my  wife  or  daughter  to  witness  a  play 
without  previously  ascertaining  its  character."  He  was 
not  afraid  to  incur  serious  losses  in  carrying  on  his  thea- 
ter according  to  his  ideals.  When  in  financial  difficulties 
he  once  wrote  a  friend:  "My  disappointment  is  great,  to 
be  sure,  but  I  have  the  consciousness  of  having  tried  to  do 
what  I  deemed  to  be  my  duty.  Since  the  talent  God  has 
given  me  can  be  made  available  for  no  other  purpose,  I 
believe  the  object  to  which  I  devote  it  to  be  worthy  of  self- 
sacrifice."  A  clergyman,  wishing  to  attend  a  play  in 
his  theater  and  afraid  of  the  censure  of  his  parishioners, 
had  the  bad  taste  to  ask  him  whether  he  might  not  be  ad- 
mitted to  a  performance  by  a  side  or  rear  door,  and  Booth 
replied :  "There  is  no  door  in  my  theater  through  which 
God  cannot  see."  Joseph  Jefferson  testified  that  Booth's 
theater  was  conducted  "like  a  church  behind  the  curtain." 


Cleaksixg  33 

The  wholesale  disapproval  hj  Christians  of  certain  forms 
of  entertainment  is  a  confession  of  unbelief  in  the  cleans- 
ing power  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus.  There  is  no  part  of 
the  landscape  of  human  life — and  certainly  not  that  part 
of  it  in  which  millions  find  keenest  pleasure — where  the 
stream  of  religion  cannot  carry  away  the  polluting  filth. 
But  there  are  other  parts  of  the  landscape  upon  which 
Christians  have  looked  with  too  lax  scrutiny,  or  where 
they  have  calmly  concluded  that  the  cleansing  river  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  could  find  no  watercourse.  We  are  all  agreed 
in  condemning  sexual  sins  as  unclean,  and  it  is  because 
of  their  stimulus  of  the  sex  instinct  that  many  forms  of 
amusement  have  been  banned  by  Christian  leaders.  The 
!N^ew  Testament  places  in  the  same  class  with  sexual  de- 
filements a  pervasive  spirit  in  our  whole  life,  which  colors 
our  point  of  view  and  corrupts  our  motives  in  every  public 
and  private  issue.  Repeatedly  in  the  writings  of  apostles 
and  of  the  fathers,  and  in  that  saying  of  Jesus  quoted 
at  the  outset,  one  finds  covetousness,  the  acquisitive  spirit, 
classed  with  "fornication,  uncleanness,  passion,  lustful 
desire."  You  may  have  noticed  this  in  the  quotations 
from  Justin  and  Lactantius  given  a  few  minutes  ago. 
But  few  among  us  regard  the  instinct  of  acquisition  as 
filthy,  or  the  man  who  is  ruled  by  it  as  a  moral  leper. 
Prom  the  'New  Testament  viewpoint  every  business  which 
is  carried  on  primarily  to  make  money,  every  public  policy 
which  is  adopted  for  our  own  national  enrichment,  every 
individual  who  takes  up  an  occupation  or  accepts  a  posi- 
tion with  his  eye  on  what  he  will  get  from  it,  is  impelled 
by  a  motive  as  foul  as  the  sexually  lustful.  We  are  chil- 
dren of  a  holy  God,  and  His  holiness  is  His  creative  love : 


34  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

He  does  nothing  for  His  own  advantage  merely,  but 
spends  Himself  that  He  may  add  to  the  beauty  of  His 
world  and  the  fullness  of  His  children's  lives.  Who,  then, 
are  of  clean  hands  and  of  pure  thoughts  before  Him? 
They  only  who  are  impelled  by  the  creative  spirit — artists 
who  put  themselves  into  their  work  for  love  of  it  and  for 
the  joy  of  enhancing  earth's  loveliness,  inventors  who  add 
to  the  serviceable  possessions  of  mankind,  producers  who 
supply  goods  with  a  sense  of  obligation  to  do  their  best 
to  fill  men's  needs,  workmen  of  every  calling  who  dedicate 
themselves  to  their  task  because  they  believe  it  to  be  a  serv- 
ice of  the  commonwealth.  With  all  such,  considerations 
of  payment  are  secondary.  The  instant  fees  become  fore- 
most in  the  mind  of  a  physician,  or  salary  in  the  thought 
of  a  preacher  or  professor,  or  profits  in  the  enterprise  of 
a  merchant,  or  dividends  in  the  eyes  of  an  investor,  or 
wages  in  the  outlook  of  any  worker,  that  instant  his  call- 
ing is  sullied  and  his  own  heart  is  soiled.  For  the  honor 
of  business  the  word  "commercialized"  must  be  cleaned 
until  it  no  longer  is  a  synonym  for  "degraded."  A  British 
economist  diagnoses  the  disease  of  our  present  social  order 
by  entitling  a  book  The  Acquisitive  Society.  As  originally 
published  in  England,  its  title  ran  "The  Sickness  of  an 
Acquisitive  Society,"  and  the  title  on  our  American  edi- 
tion is  an  improvement,  both  because  of  its  brevity  and 
because  an  acquisitive  society  cannot  be  anything  but  sick. 
By  Christian  standards  acquisitiveness  is  in  the  same  class 
with  sexual  disease.  We  take  measures  to  prevent  the 
spread  of  plagues  which  have  their  origin  in  impurity. 
The  Christian  conscience  demands  a  prophylactic  in  our 
industrial  life  to  safeguard  workers  with  head  or  hand 


Cleansing  35 

against  the  deadly  bacilli  of  the  gain-seeking  spirit.  Like 
the  lustful  impulse,  it  "hardens  all  within  and  petrifies 
the  feeling."  It  eats  up  consciences  and  rots  characters 
as  loathsomely  as  leprosy  destroys  the  tissue  of  the  body. 
Our  social  order  will  not  be  sanitary  until  it  can  be  fairly 
described  from  its  dominant  motive  as  "The  Creative 
Society/'   or  "The  Ministering  Society." 

And  what  a  mass  of  filth  has  to  be  washed  out  before 
that  can  be!  In  international  relations,  such  devices  as 
preferential  or  protective  tariffs,  ship  subsidies,  the  use 
of  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  governments  to  ob- 
tain advantages  over  rivals  in  trade,  the  imperialistic  de- 
sire to  hold  some  weaker  people  in  subjection  for  com- 
mercial profit — devices  more  fundamentally  causes  of  war 
than  the  possession  of  huge  armaments,  for  without  na- 
tional self-seeking  armaments  would  be  robbed  of  almost 
all  danger — must  come  to  be  abhorred  as  smirches  on  a 
nation's  honor.  In  business  life,  investments  made  in 
order  to  obtain  returns  irrespective  of  the  service  per- 
formed by  the  investment  must  be  viewed  with  the  disgust 
now  felt  for  the  trafiic  in  vice.  There  is  an  amazing  page 
in  Edward  Bok's  Autobiography  on  which  he  tells  how  as 
a  stenographer,  in  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  office  at 
195  Broadway,  Jay  Gould  used  to  dictate  his  stock  orders 
to  him ;  and  how  Bok  went  to  his  Sunday  School  teacher, 
a  Wall  Street  broker,  with  the  information  of  how  Gould 
was  buying  and  selling;  and  how  this  Sunday  School 
teacher  bought  and  sold  for  his  pupil  and  for  himself.  In 
the  Plymouth  Church  of  that  day  when  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  proclaiming  a  large  Gospel,  this  was  appar- 
ently considered  by  intelligent  hearers  as  quite  legitimate, 


36  What  Is  There  ix  Religion  ? 

while  the  ISTew  Testament  would  call  such  gain-seeking 
filthy  covetousness.  In  education,  studies  pursued  with 
an  eye  to  getting  on  in  the  world,  the  teaching  of  certain 
views — capitalistic  or  socialistic,  conservative  or  progres- 
sive— because  they  please  the  supporting  constituency, 
the  exclusion  from  colleges  or  schools  of  the  presentation 
of  facts  which  offend  some  powerful  group  in  the  com- 
munity, must  be  regarded  as  prostituting  institutions  ded- 
icated to  the  fearless  and  untrammeled  pursuit  and  prop- 
agation of  truth.  This  thorough  cleaning  which  our  social 
order  requires  will  not  be  compassed  save  as  we  let  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  render  consciences  sensitive  with  His 
judgment  of  filthiness  and  purity. 

It  is  a  religious  cleansing  which  is  indispensable.  Still, 
as  in  the  days  of  Celsus,  the  ordinary  man  of  the  world 
does  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  radical  transforma- 
tions of  human  nature.  Only  believers  in  the  living  God 
expect  men  to  be  born  again  and  to  show  themselves  new 
creatures.  Professor  Hocking  recently  wrote:  "There  is 
a  kind  of  official  legislative  pessimism  or  resignation,  born 
of  much  experience  of  the  unequal  struggle  between  high 
aspiration  and  nature,  a  pessimism  found  frequently  in 
the  wise  and  great  from  Solomon  to  this  day.  .  .  .  The 
world-wise  lawgiver  will  respect  the  attainable  and  main- 
tainable level  of  culture,  a  level  not  too  far  removed  from 
the  stage  of  no-effort.  .  .  .  How  different  from  this  legis- 
lative pessimism  is  the  pessimism  of  religion.  .  .  .  The 
great  religions  have  spoken  ill  of  original  human  nature; 
but  they  have  never  despaired  of  its  possibilities.  ...  In 
spite  of  the  revolutionary  character  of  their  standards, 
thcv  are  still  committed  to  the  faith  that  these  standards 


CLEAisrsi]srG  37 

are  reacBable.  .  .  .  Eeligion  declmcs  to  limit  the  moral 
possibility  of  human  nature."  The  Harvard  philosopher 
entitles  his  believing  book  Human  Nature  and  Its  Re- 
malcing.  Contemporaneously  with  his  lectures  appeared 
the  last  book  of  a  suggestive  British  thinker,  Benjamin 
Kidd,  The  Science  of  Poiver,  in  which  he  points  out  in 
how  relatively  short  a  time  the  whole  mind  of  a  people 
can  be  made  over  for  good  or  ill,  and  a  social  heredity  set 
flowing,  which  shapes  the  thoughts  of  the  new-born  and 
moulds  them  to  the  established  type.  Germany  was  mili- 
tarized, and  Japan  was  westernized,  in  a  single  genera- 
tion. Individually  and  collectively  men  are  plastic.  "With 
God  the  scabbiest  moral  leper  and  the  most  grasping  so- 
ciety can  be  cleansed  and  renewed  with  incredible  swift- 
ness. That  is  the  heart  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  If  any 
man  or  any  community  be  brought  under  His  control, 
there  is  a  new  creation :  "The  old  things  are  passed  away ; 
behold,  they  are  become  new." 

Men  cannot  fully  believe  that  there  is  this  cleansing 
power  in  the  Christian  religion  until  they  have  themselves 
experienced  it.  They  are  led  to  try  it  through  the  testi- 
mony of  those  who  have  known  what  it  was  to  be  foul  and 
then  through  Christ  washed  white.  A  book  like  Augus- 
tine's Confessions  has  perennial  force  because  it  gives  this 
personal  witness.  Surveying  his  earlier  years,  he  cries 
out :  "O  rottenness !"  and  breaks  off  from  their  contempla- 
tion :  "  'Tis  filthy,  I  will  never  give  my  mind  to  it.  I 
will  not  so  much  as  look  towards  it.  But  Thee  1  desire,  O 
Righteousness  and  Purity.  ...  I  slid  away  from  Thee, 
and  went  astray,  O  my  God,  yea,  too  much  astray,  and  I 
became  to  myself  a  land  of  want."     From  a  soiled  self 


63453 


38  "What  Is  Theee  ii^  Religion? 

that  had  been  to  him  the  far  country  of  harlots,  swine 
and  hunger,  he  had  been  cleaned  into  a  companionable 
child  of  God. 

Can  peach  renew  lost  bloom, 

Or  violet  lost  perfume, 

Or  sullied  snow  turn  white  as  overnight  ? 

Man  cannot  compass  it,  yet  never  fear : 

The  leper  Naaman 

Shows  what  God  will  and  can. 

God,  who  worked  there,  is  working  here; 

Wherefore  let  shame,  not  gloom,  betinge  thy  brow. 

God,  who  worked  then,  is  working  now. 

Penitent  shame  has  begun  to  flow  in  Christian  hearts 
oftenest  when  they  caught  sight  of  the  figure  of  Jesus. 
iN'one  can  face  Him  without  feeling  himself  dirty  by 
contrast.  "Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0 
Lord,"  has  been  the  instinctive  utterance  of  thousands 
since  the  words  first  surged  to  Peter's  lips.  The  cross 
has  always  made  our  world  appear  blackest,  for  every  gen- 
eration knows  its  own  religious  traditionalists,  commercial 
exploiters,  expedient  politicians,  false  friends,  imthinking 
mob,  indifferent  public;  and  Calvary  is  no  event  of  the 
past  alone,  but  a  present  tragedy  in  which  the  hands  of 
the  living  are  stained  with  the  blood  of  the  Righteous. 
'No  men  have  ever  accused  themselves  with  such  searching 
sincerity,  or  felt  themselves  so  smirched  by  the  guilt  of 
their  community  as  disciples  of  the  crucified  Jesus.  John 
Howard,  the  reformer  of  prisons,  just  before  his  death 
in  the  Crimea,  whither  he  had  gone  to  investigate  the 
plague,  writes  on  the  cover  of  his  memorandum  book:  "I 
think  I  never  look  into  myself  but  I  find  some  corruption 


Cleansing  39 

and  sin  in  my  heart.  .  .  .  Oh,  that  the  Son  of  God  may 
not  have  died  for  me  in  vain!"  Their  consciences  align 
Christians  among  those  who  slew  Jesus  Christ — one  with 
Caiaphas  and  Pilate  and  Judas  in  motive  and  principle. 
And  their  consciences  also  charge  them  with  complicity  in 
the  social  guilt  of  their  own  day.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
says :  "If  the  neighbors  of  an  elect  man  sin,  the  elect  man 
has  sinned.  For  had  he  conducted  himself  as  the  "Word 
prescribes,  his  neighbor  would  also  have  been  filled  with 
such  reverence  for  the  life  as  not  to  sin." 

This  sense  of  being  involved  in  corporate  wrong-doing 
has  grown  stronger  among  Christians  in  recent  genera- 
tions, "When  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  enacted,  Emer- 
son declared :  "There  is  infamy  in  the  air.  I  have  a  new 
experience,  I  wake  in  the  morning  with  a  painful  sensa- 
tion, which  I  carry  about  all  day,  and  which,  when  traced 
home,  is  the  odious  remembrance  of  that  ignominy  which 
has  fallen  on  Massachusetts,  which  robs  the  landscape 
of  beauty,  and  takes  the  sunshine  out  of  every  hour." 
R.  H.  Hutton  records  the  sensitiveness  of  Frederick  Deni- 
son  Maurice  which  made  him  charge  himself  with  every 
iniquity  which  he  found  in  the  life  about  him :  "His  con- 
fessions were  a  kind  of  litany,  poured  forth  in  the  name 
of  human  nature,  the  weakness  and  sinfulness  of  which 
he  felt  most  keenly,  most  individually,  most  painfully, 
but  which  he  felt  at  least  as  much  in  the  character  of  the 
representative  of  a  race  by  the  infirmities  of  which  he  was 
overwhelmed,  as  on  his  own  account."  This  self-reproach- 
ful complicity  in  the  sinful  tendencies  of  the  life  about 
them  is  typical  of  the  finest  Christian  spirits.  A  keen- 
minded  Chinese  official,  comparing  the  influence  of  Jesus 


40  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

with  that  of  Confucius  and  Buddha  and  Lao-tse,  once  said 
to  me  in  Peking:  "He  seems  to  have  the  power  to  create 
a  more  delicate  conscience."  One  is  aware  of  its  pres- 
ence in  those  in  our  generation  who  take  seriously  the 
mind  of  Christ.  Caught  in  judgments  like  the  Great  War, 
or  faced  with  the  selfishnesses  and  sordidnesses  of  our 
peacefulest  times,  they  o\vn :  "Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  a  man 
of  unclean  motive,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people 
of  unclean  motive,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the  Lord  of 
love,  and  looked  on  Him  whom  we  have  pierced."  In  that 
experience  of  personal  and  social  shame,  men  are  set  free 
from  soiling  self-interest  and  made  passionate  enthusiasts 
for  the  reign  of  brotherhood.  In  contact  with  Christ  they 
are  disgraced  and  reborn. 

We  return  to  the  metaphor  with  which  we  began — the 
Hudson  River  cleaning  those  who  bathe  in  its  waters  and 
bearing  the  filth  of  a  thronged  city  into  the  salt  ocean. 
The  Spirit  of  God  touches  men  like  the  moving  current 
of  a  great  stream.  "Let  all  bitterness  and  wrath  and  anger 
and  clamor  and  railing  be  put  away  from  you  with  all 
malice" — Paul's  words  suggest  an  outbearing  current  re- 
moving this  moral  sewerage,  if  men  will  allow  it  to  be 
carried  off.  And  his  next  sentence  easily  connects  itself 
with  a  picture  of  the  cleaned  streets  of  a  wholesome  city 
where  children  of  God  dwell  together  in  spiritual  health: 
"And  be  ye  kind  one  to  another,  tender-hearted,  forgiving 
each  other,  even  as  God  also  in  Christ  forgave  you."  Men 
have  found  this  cleansing  in  religion.  They  have  confi- 
dently prayed,  as  individuals  and  as  nations:  "Wash  me, 
and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow." 


CHAPTER  III 

POWER 

ALONG  part  of  the  course  of  the  Hudson  River  mills 
are  built  and  the  stream  is  employed  as  a  source 
of  power.  Human  force  is  multiplied  many  times 
hy  the  force  of  the  current,  and  what  would  be  impossible 
for  the  physical  strength  of  man  is  done  easily  with  the 
assistance  of  the  river.  The  commonest  of  all  religious 
experiences  is  the  discovery  that  power  results  from  faith 
in  God. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  acknowledgments  by  believers  of 
this  reinforcement.  An  early  warrior  sings :  "By  Thee 
I  run  upon  a  troop,  and  by  my  God  do  I  leap  over  a  wall." 
Another  psalmist  gives  as  a  repeatedly  verified  experience : 
''Twice  have  I  heard  this  :  that  power  belongeth  unto  God." 
A  shrinking  prophet  faces  single-handed  a  whole  people 
with  the  divine  Voice  ringing  in  his  soul:  "I  have  made 
thee  a  fortified  city,  and  an  iron  pillar,  and  brazen  walls." 
A  Christian  apostle,  who  to  spread  the  sway  of  Jesus  has 
inured  himself  to  hardship  and  loss,  and  learned  self- 
control  when  success  smiled  upon  him,  declares:  "I  can 
do  all  things  in  Him  that  strengtheneth  me."  Old  Testa- 
ment believers  heard  the  challenge :  "Is  anything  too  hard 
for  the  Lord  ?"  Jesus  premised  His  prayer  with  the  con- 
fession of  confidence:  "Abba,  Father,  all  things  are  pos- 
sible unto  Thee" ;  and  He  passed  on  to  His  followers  an 
assurance  which  made  them  say  again  and  again:  "God 

41 


42  "What  Is  Theee  in  Religion  ? 

is  able — able  to  guard  you  from  stumbling,  able  to  make 
all  grace  abound,  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly."  The 
biographers  of  Jesus  repeatedly  call  attention  to  His  ex- 
traordinary force :  His  word  is  with  power ;  He  does 
mighty  works;  He  is  aware  of  limitless  resources — "the 
Father  abiding  in  Me  doeth  His  works."  The  God  of 
Christian  faith  is  not  sheer  might;  He  is  love;  but  His 
love  is  wise,  and  has  all  the  forces  of  the  universe  at  its 
disposal.  The  supreme  instance  of  the  might  of  God  is 
the  triumph  of  Jesus  over  the  combination  of  forces  which 
massed  themselves  to  end  His  career  and  succeeded  in 
crucifying  and  burying  Him,  only  to  find  Him  a  more 
potent  living  Factor  both  in  their  own  and  succeeding 
centuries.  When  Paul  wants  a  measure  for  the  force  of 
God,  he  speaks  of  "the  exceeding  greatness  of  His  power 
to  usward  who  believe,  according  to  that  working  of  the 
strength  of  His  might  which  He  wrought  in  Christ,  when 
He  raised  Him  from  the  dead."  Christian  faith  estab- 
lishes a  connection  with  One  whose  love  is  incalculably 
capable. 

Man  is  pitted  against  three  antagonists  which  seem  too 
strong  for  him — the  physical  universe,  the  mass  of  his 
fellow-mortals,  and  himself. 

(1)  The  physical  universe.  He  has  to  sustain  himself 
in  the  midst  of,  by,  and  against  the  world  of  nature.  He 
must  fight  to  keep  alive — fight  against  heat  and  cold,  dis- 
ease and  danger.  He  must  subdue  beasts  and  soil,  and 
make  them  sujiport  him.  He  must  investigate  and  try 
to  conquer  such  forces  as  electricity  and  bacilli.  He  wages 
a  losing  battle,  for  in  three  score  years  and  ten  more  or 
less  the  physical  universe  appears  to  win  and  to  reduce 


Power  43 

his  body  to  dust.  Instinctively  he  reaches  out  for  an  in- 
visible Ally;  and,  from  the  most  primitive  believer,  who 
fortified  himself  with  a  magical  charm,  to  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth commending  His  spirit  to  a  Father's  hands,  he  has 
felt  himself  strengthened. 

Psychologists  have  investigated  the  latent  force  in  man's 
instinctive  emotions,  and  have  taught  us  how  these  are 
made  dangerous  by  repression  or  paralyzed  by  inhibiting 
notions.  There  is  no  more  emancipating  idea  than  that 
on  which  Jesus  laid  such  constant  stress — that  this  physi- 
cal universe  is  God's  world,  that  its  forces  are  not  foes  but 
friends  of  His  sons  and  daughters,  that  man  can  use  every 
one  of  them  for  his  advantage.  Paul  summed  up  the 
Master's  teaching  in  the  statement :  "All  things  are  yours : 
the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things  present,  or  things 
to  come;  all  are  yours."  Those  who  possess  this  faith 
are  freed  from  fear — the  most  serious  of  inhibitions.  In 
their  religious  life  they  are  daily  renewed  with  the  sug- 
gestion of  power.  Physiologists  tell  us  that  the  mind  be- 
comes fatigued  much  sooner  than  the  body,  so  that  a  faith 
which  strengthens  our  confidence  enables  us  to  put  forth 
much  more  physical  energy.  A  British  neurologist  re- 
ports an  experiment  on  three  men  under  hypnosis,  in  which 
a  suggestion  of  weakness  lowered  their  strength  to  almost 
one-fourth  of  their  normal  average,  while  a  suggestion  of 
power  increased  it  by  more  than  a  third.  Christian  faith 
enables  its  possessors  to  become  whole  men  physically,  to 
release  as  much  as  in  them  is.  And  Christian  believers 
would  not  be  willing  to  limit  their  available  powers  by 
those  which  any  physicist  could  list  as  within  them.  They 
refuse  to  draw  a  sharp  line  between  the  Within  and  the 


44  "What  Is  There  ix  Reltgiox  ? 

Beyond ;  for  tliem  there  is  a  door  between,  wliicli  they  be^ 
lieve  can  be  opened.  The  resources  in  themselves  are  not 
merely  human,  for  God  is  within ;  and  God  to  whom  be- 
longs the  universe  can  replenish  and  supplement  the  avail- 
able stock  out  of  an  exhaustless  store.  Pitted  against  the 
odds  of  the  physical  universe,  they  are  confident  that  all 
that  God  asks  of  them  they  can  rely  on  Him  to  supply. 

In  the  note-books  of  Henry  ]\I.  Stanley  there  are  strik- 
ing testimonials  to  the  worth  of  religion  to  a  man  con- 
fronting the  perilous  forces  of  a  savage  continent : 

"On  all  my  expeditions,  prayer  made  me  stronger,  mor- 
ally and  mentally,  than  my  non-praying  companions.  It 
did  not  blind  my  eyes,  or  dull  my  mind,  or  close  my  ears ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  it  gave  me  confidence.  It  did  more, 
it  gave  me  joy  and  pride  in  my  work,  and  lifted  me  hope- 
fully over  the  one  thousand  five  hundred  miles  of  forest 
tracks,  eager  to  face  the  day's  perils  and  fatigues.  .  .  . 
Civilized  society  rejoices  in  the  protection  afforded  it  by 
strong-armed  law.  Those  in  whom  faith  in  God  is  strong 
feel  the  same  sense  of  security  in  the  deepest  wilds.  An 
invisible  Good  Influence  surrounds  them,  to  whom  they 
appeal  in  distress,  an  Influence  which  inspires  noble 
thoughts,  comfort  in  grief,  and  resolution  when  weakened 
by  misfortune.  I  imperfectly  understand  this  myself, 
but  I  have  faith  and  believe.  .  .  .  By  prayer,  the  road 
sought  for  has  become  visible,  and  the  danger  immediately 
lessened,  not  once  or  twice  or  thrice,  but  repeatedly,  until 
the  cold  unbelieving  heart  was  impressed." 

But  the  physical  universe  sooner  or  later  presents  man 
with  the  inevitable.  He  may  face  it  in  one  of  five  ways : — 
He  may  revolt,  and  be  sent  to  his  grave  'like  a  quarry 
slave  at  night  scourged  to  his  dungeon."    He  may  try  to 


Power  45 

cheat  the  universe  by  taking  his  own  life,  finding  a  pose 
of  power  in  substituting  for  its  mode  of  execution  one 
which  he  chooses  for  himself.  He  may  attempt  a  frac- 
tional suicide  by  dulling  his  sensibilities  with  drink  or 
drugs.  He  may  face  it  with  the  grim  effort  of  will  of  the 
Stoic  or  the  Red  Indian.  Or  he  may  accept  it  as  the  will 
of  a  wise  and  loving  Father.  Christian  faith  condemns 
revolt  and  suicide,  whether  total  or  partial.  One  evan- 
gelist tells  us  that  Jesus  declined  the  drugged  drink  which 
humane  custom  provided  for  victims  en  route  to  cruci- 
fixion.   He  seemed  to  say : 

I  would  hate  that  death  bandaged  my  eyes  and  forbore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 
!N"o!  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it. 

Christianity  is  altogether  different  from  Stoicism  in  its 
attitude  to  the  universe,  but  many  a  Christian  tends  to 
stop  with  Stoicism.  There  are  few  more  heroic  figures 
in  the  annals  of  English  literature  than  that  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  when  suddenly  upon  his  career  of  uninterrupted 
prosperity  came,  through  no  fault  of  his,  the  failure  of  the 
publishing  house  in  which  he  was  financially  involved, 
the  death  of  a  dearly  loved  grandson  and  the  death  of  his 
wife.  Scott  left  the  house  he  loved,  saw  his  cherished  be- 
longings taken  away  for  sale,  sat  down  day  after  day  and 
forced  himself  to  write  in  order  to  pay  off  his  creditors, 
and  battled  manfully  with  his  own  depression.  Here 
is  a  typical  entry  in  his  diary : 

"Worked  in  the  morning  as  usual,   and  sent  off  the 
proofs  and  copy.     Something  of  the  black  dog  still  hang- 


46  What  Is  Theke  in  Keligion? 

ing  about  me ;  but  I  will  shake  him  off.  I  generally  affect 
good  spirits  in  company  of  my  family,  whether  I  am  en- 
joying them  or  not.  It  is  too  severe  to  sadden  the  harm- 
less mirth  of  others  by  suffering  your  own  causeless  melan- 
choly to  be  seen;  and  this  species  of  exertion  is,  like  vir- 
tue, its  o"\vn  reward;  for  the  good  spirits,  which  are  at 
first  simulated,  become  at  length  real." 

God  forbid  that  one  should  speak  slightingly  of  a  strug- 
gle so  honorably  fought ;  but  it  is  singular  that  one  as 
punctiliously  religious  in  outward  observances  should  have 
fought  it  apparently  alone.  When  Lady  Scott  lies  slowly 
dying,  he  enters: 

"The  same  scene  of  hopeless  (almost)  and  unavailing 
anxiety.  Still  welcoming  me  with  a  smile,  and  asserting 
she  is  better.  I  fear  the  disease  is  too  deeply  entwined 
with  the  principles  of  life.  Still  laboring  at  this  Review, 
without  heart  or  spirits  to  finish  it.  I  am  a  tolerable  Stoic, 
but  preach  to  myself  in  vain." 

And  he  transcribes  two  lines  from  Shakespeare's  King 
Henry  the  Fourth: 

Are  these  things  then  necessities? 
Then  let  us  meet  them  like  necessities. 

Possibly  Scott's  reticence  made  him  diffident  in  express- 
ing religious  faith  even  in  his  diary;  but  he  seems  to  be 
forcing  himself  to  bear  up  by  sheer  power  of  will,  and 
pathetically  he  owns  that  the  struggle  loaves  him  "har- 
dened." It  is  a  long  way  from  the  acquiescence  of  Geth- 
semane:  "The  cup  which  the  Father  giveth  Me,  shall 
I  not  drink  it  ?" 


Power  47 

Henri  Amiel,  professor  in  the  Academy  of  Geneva, 
acute  student  of  art,  literature  and  philosophy,  consults 
his  physician  and  is  told  that  an  incurable  malady  is  upon 
him,  that  he  must  look  forward  to  rapidly  waning  strength, 
and  after  some  months  or  years  to  death,  ^ext  morning 
he  writes  in  his  Journal: 

"On  waking  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  staring  into  the 
future  with  startled  eyes.  Is  it  indeed  to  me  that  these 
things  apply?  Incessant  and  growing  humiliation,  my 
slavery  becoming  heavier,  my  circle  of  action  steadily 
narrower!  ...  It  is  difficult  for  the  natural  man  to  es- 
cape from  a  dumb  rage  against  inevitable  agony." 

He  asks  himself  the  possible  explanations  of  the  universe : 
an  indifferent  nature  ?  a  Satanic  principle  of  things  ?  a 
good  and  just  God  ?  As  he  thinks  them  over,  the  Chris- 
tion  interpretation  grips  his  mind: 

"Righteousness  consists  in  willingly  accepting  one's  lot, 
in  submitting  to  and  espousing  the  destiny  assigned  us, 
in  willing  what  God  commands,  in  renouncing  what  He 
forbids  us,  in  consenting  to  what  He  takes  from  us  or 
refuses  us." 

And  the  entry  in  the  journal  concludes: 

"Health  cut  off  means  marriage,  travel,  study  and  work 
forbidden  or  endangered.  It  means  life  reduced  in  at- 
tractiveness and  utility  by  five-sixths.    Thy  tuill  he  done !" 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  quoted  Mr.  Birrell's  remark 
on  the  religion  of  Charlotte  Bronte.  It  may  be  true  that 
she  had  not  enough  faith  to  give  her  enjoyment;  but  she 


48  TViiAT  Is  Theee  IX  Religion  ? 

had  enough  to  give  her  splendid  power.  After  her  sister 
Emily's  death,  and  with  xinne  dying  of  the  same  incurable 
disease,  this  brilliant  woman,  condemned  to  the  loneliest 
of  existences  with  her  old  father  in  Haworth  rectory  on 
the  bleak  Yorkshire  moors,  writes  to  her  closest  friend: 

"I  avoid  looking  forward  or  backward,  and  try  to  keep 
looking  upward.  This  is  not  the  time  to  regret,  dread,  or 
weep.  What  I  have  and  ought  to  do  is  very  distinctly 
laid  out  for  me;  what  I  want,  and  pray  for,  is  strength 
to  perform  it.  The  days  pass  in  a  slow,  dark  march ;  the 
nights  are  the  test ;  the  sudden  wakings  from  restless  sleep, 
the  revived  knowledge  that  one  lies  in  her  grave,  and  an- 
other not  at  my  side,  but  in  a  separate  and  sick  bed. 
However,  God  is  over  all." 

An  even  more  triumphant  instance  of  the  power  which 
Christian  faith  supplies  in  the  face  of  an  overwhelming 
blow  from  the  physical  universe  is  given  in  Dr.  John 
Brown's  account  of  the  way  in  which  his  sainted  father 
took  his  wife's  death: 

"On  the  morning  of  the  28th  May  1816,  my  eldest  sis- 
ter, Janet,  and  I  were  sleeping  in  the  kitchen-bed  with 
Tibbie  Meek,  our  only  servant.  TVe  were  all  three  awak- 
ened by  a  cry  of  pain — sharp,  insuiferable,  as  if  one  were 
stung.  .  .  .  We  all  knew  whose  voice  it  was,  and,  in  our 
night-clothes,  we  ran  into  the  passage,  and  into  the  little 
parlor  to  the  left  hand,  in  which  was  a  closet-bed.  We 
found  my  father  standing  before  us,  erect,  his  hands 
clenched  in  his  black  hair,  his  eyes  full  of  misery  and 
amazement,  his  face  white  as  that  of  the  dead.  He 
frightened  us.  He  saw  this,  or  else  his  intense  will  had 
mastered  his  agony,  for,  taking  his  hands  from  his  head, 
he  said,   slowly  and  gently,   'Let  us  give  thanks,'   and 


POWEE  49 

turned  to  a  little  sofa  in  the  room ;  there  lay  our  mother, 
dead." 

In  these  instances  we  have  men  and  women  confronting 
the  universe  in  its  most  menacing  and  hostile  aspects,  and 
finding  in  religion  force  to  face  circumstances  bravely,  and 
to  acquiesce  with  thankfulness  in  that  which  at  the  time 
is  breaking  their  hearts. 

(2)  The  mass  of  our  felloiv-mortals.  Every  earnest 
man  has  to  follow  a  lonely  way  in  face  of  the  criticism  of 
many  and  the  opposition  of  some,  and  with  the  drag  of 
the  uncaring  ignorance  of  the  majority  of  those  about 
him.  Here  and  there  stalwart  spirits  fall  back  on  them- 
selves and  hold  their  course  in  resolute  solitude.  But  in 
such  isolation  almost  invariably  they  are  driven,  even 
despite  their  own  reluctant  unbelief,  to  feel  after  invisible 
Comradeship.    And  then  the  power  of  faith  is  manifested. 

For  years  Louis  Pasteur  strove  in  the  interest  of  truth 
and  humanity,  against  the  medical  profession  and  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  his  fellow-scientists,  to  have  his 
theory  of  the  spread  of  infection  by  germs  applied  prac- 
tically. It  was  a  long  and  almost  solitary  struggle  against 
stupidity,  pride  and  professional  jealousy.  When  at  the 
close  of  his  career  he  was  elected  to  the  Academy,  at  a 
time  when  expressions  of  personal  religion  were  most  un- 
common in  such  circles,  he  took  occasion  in  his  inaugural 
address  to  pay  homage  to  the  sense  of  a  Power  beyond 
man's : 

"Blessed  is  he  who  carries  within  himself  a  God,  an 
ideal,  and  who  obeys  it;  ideal  of  art,  ideal  of  science, 
ideal  of  the  gospel  virtues,  therein  lie  the  springs  of  great 


50  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

thoughts  and  great  actions;  they  all  reflect  light  from  the 

Infinite." 

Pasteur  had  an  English  contemporary  who  would  have 
regretted  that  his  faith  was  not  more  explicitly  evangelical 
and  orthodox,  but  whose  own  battle  through  a  lifetime  on 
behalf  of  the  oppressed — factory-operatives,  chimney- 
sweeps, lunatics,  children  enslaved  in  industry — was  akin 
to  the  struggle  of  the  French  man  of  science.  Lord  Ash- 
ley (more  familiarly  known  by  his  later  title  as  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury)  confided  to  a  diary  such  reflections  as  these: 

"Engaged  more  than  ever:  small  works  compared  with 
the  political  and  financial  movements  of  the  day — a  Lodg- 
iug-House,  a  Ragged  School,  a  Vagrant  Bill,  a  Thieves' 
Refuge!  No  wonder  that  people  think  me  as  small  as 
my  work ;  and  yet  I  would  not  change  it.  Surely  God  has 
called  me  to  the  career. 

"  'With  all  your  experience'  (I  imagine  some  young 
man  saying  to  me)  Vould  you  counsel  me  to  follow  the 
career  that  you  have  chosen  and  pursued  V  In  the  first 
place,  I  reply  that,  in  spite  of  all  vexations,  disappoint- 
ments, rebuffs,  insults,  toil,  self-denial,  expense,  weariness, 
sickness,  all  loss  of  political  position,  and  considerable 
loss  of  estimation — in  spite  of  being  always  secretly  de- 
spised and  often  publicly  ignored — in  spite  of  having 
your  'evil'  most  maliciously  and  ingeniously  exaggerated, 
and  your  'good'  'evil  spoken  of,'  I  would  for  myself  say, 
'Yes.' " 

Throughout  the  diary  after  some  speech  which  he  had 
anticipated  with  dread  and  which  Avent  off  better  than  he 
had  dared  to  hope,  after  some  unexpected  support  for  his 
measures  from  leaders  in  Parliament,  after  a  vote  which 
set  forward  the  cause  even  if  for  the  time  being  the  bill 


Power  51 

he  wanted  was  not  passed,  he  inserts:  "Non  nobis.  Do- 
mine/^ 

Here  are  men  who  found  their  religion  a  reinforcement 
against  the  pressure  of  fellow-mortals  indifferent  or  hos- 
tile to  their  cherished  ideals. 

There  are  dozens  of  men  and  women,  younger  and 
older,  in  our  commercial  enterprises  asking  themselves 
whether  Christian  principles  can  be  made  to  work  in 
modern  business.  They  may  need  to  be  reminded  that 
no  sentiment,  however  lofty,  can  be  expected  to  act  as  a 
substitute  for  sound  judgment  and  unflagging  industry. 
They  may  also  be  told  that  the  current  acquisitive  motives 
are  not  working  in  such  fashion  that  present  business 
conditions  can  be  viewed  with  complacency.  But  they 
must  recall  that  the  Gospel  does  not  offer  mere  principles 
which  men  must  put  into  operation,  but  the  Spirit  of  love 
which  is  the  Spirit  of  power.  The  Christian  religion 
stands  or  falls  with  the  practicability  of  this  Spirit.  It 
asserts  that  the  mind  of  Jesus  is  the  mind  of  the  Lord  of 
earth  and  heaven,  that  to  work  by  methods  at  variance 
with  that  mind  is  to  court  certain  disaster  and  to  im- 
poverish one's  soul,  that  to  be  ruled  by  His  mind  is  to 
encounter  criticism,  mockery,  enmity — a  repetition  in 
some  sort  of  Calvary — and  inevitably  to  know  the  power 
of  His  victory. 

There  are  hundreds  of  wistful  spirits  the  world  over 
looking  for  a  readjustment  of  international  relations  on  a 
basis  of  brotherhood  which  will  render  impossible  a  re- 
currence of  the  tragedy  of  war.  They  feel  the  pressure 
of  the  opposition  which  invariably  develops  when  even 
the   most  moderate   steps   towards    an   organization   for 


52  What  Is  Theke  in  Eeligion? 

world-friendship  are  undertaken.  They  know  the  cyn- 
icism which  has  succeeded  the  eager  idealism  of  a  few 
years  ago.  They  see  the  same  factors  alive  and  aggressive 
which  brought  on  the  terrible  catastrophe.  They  confront 
the  dilemma  of  pessimism  or  religious  faith.  Those  who 
choose  the  latter  are  the  spirits  with  force  enough  to  bring 
to  the  birth  the  new  era,  with  which  the  world  is  now 
travailing. 

(3)  Man  figMs  ivitliliimself.  Each  one  knows  himself 
a  house  divided.  It  is  not  merely  a  conflict  of  the  physical 
and  the  spiritual,  but  a  civil  war  in  the  spirit  itself.  The 
most  placid  of  saints  confess  their  consciousness  of  an  in- 
ward warfare,  and  the  vast  majority  of  believers  tell  of  a 
battle  to  the  death.  The  struggle  seems  usually  more 
acute  in  religious  than  in  irreligious  natures;  for  in  the 
latter  the  spiritual  nature  is  itself  dormant;  but  the  for- 
mer speak  of  conquest.  They  have  opened  their  hearts 
in  trust  and  let  in  reinforcements  against  their  baser 
selves.  In  the  conclusion  of  his  study  of  The  Varieties 
of  FeJigions  Experience,  Professor  William  James  says 
that  "higher  energies  filter  in."  The  combat  between  the 
good  that  a  man  would  and  the  .evil  that  he  would  not  do, 
wringing  the  anguished  exclamation :  "Wretched  man  that 
I  am !  who  shall  deliver  me  ?"  ends  successfully  with  those 
who  can  say:  "I  thank  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord." 

N'ot  to  dwell  upon  the  grosser  passions  and  hideous 
selfishness  from  which  believers  look  to  God  to  wash 
them  white,  take  the  timidity  which  inhibits  usefulness. 
When  young  John  Calvin  was  a  student  in  Paris,  and  just 
beginning  to  break  with  the  traditional  Eoman  interpreta- 


Power  53 

tion  of  Christianity,  he  suddenly  discovered  fellow-stu- 
dents and  other  inquiring  folk  turning  to  him  for  guid- 
ance: 

"I  was  quite  surprised  to  find  that  before  a  year  elapsed 
all  who  had  any  desire  after  purer  doctrines  were  con- 
tinually coming  to  me  to  learn,  although  I  myself  was 
hut  a  novice  and  a  tyro.  Being  of  a  disposition  somewhat 
unpolished  and  bashful  which  led  me  to  love  retirement, 
I  then  began  to  seek  some  corner  where  I  might  be  with- 
drawn from  public  view;  but  so  far  from  being  able  to 
accomplish  the  object  of  my  desire,  all  retreats  were  like 
public  schools.  In  short,  whilst  my  one  great  object  was 
to  live  in  seclusion  without  being  known,  God  so  led  me 
out  through  different  turnings  and  changes  that  He  never 
permitted  me  to  rest  in  one  place,  until  in  spite  of  my 
natural  disposition  He  brought  me  forth  into  public 
notice." 

And  there  is  a  tradition  that  this  shy  and  hesitant  scholar, 
apprehensive  of  the  conflict  ahead,  scarcely  knowing 
whither  his  thoughts  were  taking  him,  used  to  conclude 
these  early  addresses  on  religious  themes  with  the  words : 
"If  God  be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ?"  Eeligion  was 
his  reliance  to  down  the  inhibitions  of  bashfulness. 

Many  discover  a  worse  inward  enemy  in  worry,  which 
robs  them  of  sleep,  darkens  their  days,  and  more  than 
halves  their  efficiency.  On  March  3rd,  1843,  after  a  long 
effort  which  had  left  him  with  less  than  a  dollar  in  his 
pocket,  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse  sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  Sen- 
ate Chamber  in  Washington  anxiously  waiting  for  the 
passage  of  a  Telegraph  Bill,  which  would  insure  the  put- 
ting into  operation  of  his  invention  for  the  transmission 
of  messages  by  wire.     As  the  hands  of  the  clock  drew 


54  What  Is  Theee  tn  Religion? 

towards  midnight  on  that  last  evening  of  an  expiring 
Congress,  he  consulted  two  senatorial  friends  on  the  prob- 
ability of  the  bill's  being  reached  before  the  close  of  the 
session,  and  they  could  only  bid  him  prepare  to  be  dis- 
appointed. "In  this  state  of  mind,"  he  writes  to  a  friend, 
"I  retired  to  my  chamber  and  made  all  my  arrangements 
for  leaving  Washington  the  next  day.  Painful  as  was 
this  prospect  of  renewed  disappointment,  you,  my  dear 
sir,  will  understand  me  when  I  say  that,  knowing  from 
experience  whence  my  help  must  come  in  any  difficulty,  I 
soon  disposed  of  my  cares,  and  slept  as  quietly  as  a  child." 
N^ext  morning  at  breakfast  he  was  called  out  of  the  hotel 
dining-room,  and  to  his  extreme  astonishment  told  that 
the  bill  had  passed.  But  if  it  had  not  been  reached,  with 
a  good  night's  rest  behind  him,  Morse  would  have  been 
ready  for  the  next  effort.  Christian  faith  equipped  him 
with  the  valuable  power  of  disposing  of  care. 

Students  of  psychology  have  been  opening  up  for  us  the 
abysses  of  human  personality,  and  pointing  out  the  dan- 
gers that  lurk  in  repressed  or  misdirected  impulses,  no- 
tably the  sex-impulse.  A  certain  school  of  psycho-analysts 
carry  back  almost  all  mental  and  moral  ills  to  some  faulty 
treatment  of  this  primary  instinct.  Whether  their  diag- 
nosis be  altogether  correct  or  not.  Christian  faith  and  con- 
secration can  sublimate  the  impulse  and  transmute  it  into 
a  creative  force  for  the  highest  social  well-being.  The 
conversion  of  the  instincts  sets  free  the  reservoir  of  latent 
power  in  man's  subconscious  life,  and  opens  up  his  per- 
sonality to  fresh  inspirations  from  the  life  of  God.  To  re- 
vert to  our  metaphor  of  the  Hudson,  religion  changes  the 
nature  of  a  man  from  a  stagnant  pool,  in  which  all  manner 


POWEK  55 

of  noxious  infections  breed,  into  a  river  flowing  out  in 
acts  of  ministry  and  replenished  with  new  supplies  from 
the  lofty  mountains  of  God.  It  is  not  without  significance 
that  the  health-commissioner  of  one  of  our  largest  cities 
recently  called  together  a  group  of  religious  leaders  and 
asked  their  cooperation  in  dealing  with  drug-addicts.  He 
brought  with  him  a  number  of  physicians  who  had  spe- 
cialized in  the  treatment  of  these  cases,  and  the  burden  of 
their  speech  was  that  apart  from  religious  renewal  they 
were  unable  to  point  to  permanent  cures.  Here  is  a  pa- 
thetic class  of  men  and  women,  who  long  to  be  delivered 
from  their  own  craving,  for  whom  the  only  certain  relief 
and  rescue  seems  to  lie  in  the  power  of  faith. 

In  this  discussion  of  religion  as  a  source  of  power,  it  is 
well  to  remind  ourselves  that  there  are  two  types  of 
strength:  there  is  the  strength  of  the  steel  bridge  over 
which  a  heavy  train  pounds  its  way,  while  the 
girders  resist  the  shock  and  strain;  there  is  the 
strength  of  the  locomotive  which  draws  the  train  at  a 
steady  speed.  There  is  the  strength  of  the  river  which 
bears  up  a  heavy  vessel,  and  the  strength  of  its  cur- 
rent which  sweeps  such  a  vessel  towards  the  sea.  Be- 
lieving men  find  both  forms  of  strength  in  religion — the 
power  of  patience  by  which  they  endure  the  intolerable, 
and  the  power  of  perpetual  moral  motion.  They  find  in 
God  both  the  passive  and  the  active  streng-th.  Isaiah  pos- 
sessed and  tried  to  give  his  contemporaries  in  Judah 
quietness  and  confidence.  Paul  said  of  a  tottering  weak 
brother:  "The  Lord  hath  power  to  make  him  stand." 
Jesus,  "when  He  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again."  "Water 
has  a  stalwart  resistance  to  pressure,  and  faith  beareth 


66  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

and  enduretli  all  things.  Another  prophet  pictures  the 
believing  exiles  on  their  march  across  the  desert  to  their 
homeland  mounting  upon  wings,  running,  walking — al- 
ways moving  towards  their  goal.  E^ew  Testament  Chris- 
tians found  the  energizing  Spirit  of  Christ  within  them 
an  unfailing  inspiration  to  tireless  effort.  Steadfastness 
and  energy — the  power  to  keep  still  and  the  power  to 
keep  going — these  men  discover  in  religion. 

In  a  sense,  as  was  suggested  in  a  previous  chapter,  re- 
ligion makes  life  much  harder,  because  it  faces  believers 
with  the  impossible — with  the  Christlike.  Many  people 
manage  to  get  along  without  the  reinforcements  of  religion 
because  for  themselves  and  for  their  community  they  aim 
at  goals  well  within  their  powers.  To  them  the  message 
that  force  is  to  be  found  from  contact  with  the  Unseen  is 
without  interest.  They  may  even  think  it  a  sign  of  weak- 
ness, unworthy  of  self-respecting  men,  to  go  begging  for 
assistance  from  any  one.  But  the  Christian  is  haunted 
with  a  tantalizing  ideal  to  which  he  cannot  attain.  He 
must  stand  as  much,  and  bear  it  as  acquiescently,  as  Jesus. 
He  must  spend  himself  as  ungrudgingly  and  with  a  like 
outgo  of  love.  The  more  seriously  he  takes  the  ideal  of 
Jesus,  the  more  painfully  aware  he  is  that  he  comes  no- 
where near  its  achievement.  He  must  either  give  up  in 
desperation  or  turn  for  aid  to  One  who  is  able  unto  the 
uttermost.  We  were  speaking  a  moment  ago  of  Calvin. 
Wlien  he  first  established  the  refonned  faith  in  Geneva,  a 
certain  offender  against  Biblical  moral  standards,  who 
was  cited  to  appear  before  the  Council,  sent  the  naive 
message  that  he  was  prepared  to  agree  to  the  articles  of 
the  Confession  of  Faith,  but  that  he  could  not  take  any 


Power  57 

oath  about  the  Ten  Commandments  of  God  "becanse  they 
are  very  difficult  to  keep."  It  is  the  difficulty  of  the  ISTew 
Testament  interpretation  of  what  God  requires  of  us  and 
our  community  which  compels  us  to  go  to  Him  for  re- 
inforcement. 

And  what  a  picture  a  river,  like  our  Hudson,  is  of  Divine 
power !  A  dam  might  be  erected  which  would  check  that 
flow  of  water  for  a  brief  space,  but  no  matter  how  high  the 
obstruction  might  be  built,  the  water  would  continue  to 
pile  up  behind  it,  until  at  length  it  poured  over  the  top, 
or  forced  a  way  around  it,  or  by  its  sheer  weight  broke 
through  the  dam.  A  loving  God  may  be  delayed.  Men 
may  set  up  barriers  against  His  purpose  in  our  world ;  they 
may  hold  fast  the  entrances  of  their  own  hearts.  But 
sooner  or  later,  over,  or  around,  or  through.  He  comes. 
Have  we  not  seen  it  in  human  affairs  ?  Have  we  not 
known  it  in  our  own  experiences? 

When  a  river  is  employed  to  supply  power,  men  rarely 
set  their  water-wheels  in  the  broad  stream.  The  current 
is  contracted  into  a  mill-race.  Has  not  God  done  some- 
thing analogous  to  that  in  His  Self-expression  in  Jesus? 
Has  He  not  focussed  and  made  available  His  power? 
Jesus  used  the  metaphor  of  contraction  when  He  said  of 
His  death:  "How  am  I  straitened  till  it  be  accomplished!" 
The  figure  of  Jesus,  and  especially  of  Jesus  as  crucified, 
is  in  every  generation  the  point  where  men  are  connected 
with  the  flow  of  Divine  might.  George  Tyrrell  wrote: 
"Again  and  again  I  have  been  tempted  to  give  up  the 
struggle,  but  always  the  figure  of  that  strange  Man  hang- 
ing on  the  cross  sends  me  back  to  my  task  again."  Samuel 
Butler,  who  delighted  in  sneering  at  Christianity,  once 


58  What  Is  There  in  Eeligion  ? 

set  down  in  a  note-book:  ''There  will  be  no  comfortable 
and  safe  development  of  our  social  arrangements — I  mean 
we  .hall  not  get  infanticide  and  the  permission  to  suicide, 
nor  cheap  and  easy  divorce — till  Jesus  Christ's  ghost  has 
been  laid."  He  added  sarcastically:  "And  the  best  way 
to  lay  it  is  to  be  a  moderate  churchman."  Christ  sets  the 
ideal  and  has  power  to  force  men  to  try  to  attain  it. 

And  when  He  lays  hold  of  a  life,  He  narrows  it  into 
a  mill-race.  Like  Himself,  His  disciples  are  wonderfully 
broadened  in  the  range  of  their  sympathies,  but  they  are 
restricted  to  a  single  purpose.  Paul  used  the  word  which 
a  Greek  would  have  employed  for  the  confining  of  water 
in  a  sluice:  "The  love  of  Christ  constrainetli  me."  His 
followers  feel  themselves  hemmed  in.  Every  activity  of 
their  lives  has  to  be  in  line  with  the  aim  for  which  Jesus 
lived  and  died,  as  the  mill-race  parallels  the  course  of  the 
stream.  And  through  a  man's  life  so  narrowed  and  set 
power  flows.  The  concentrated  man  accomplishes  what 
nobody  fancied  he  had  it  in  him  to  do.  And  they  were 
quite  right:  he  hadn't  it  tJi  Mm.  "I  labored  more  abun- 
dantly (our  English  word  is  derived  from  the  flow  of  water 
wave  on  wave — ab  undo),  yet  not  I,  but  the  grace  of  God 
that  was  with  me." 

Here  and  there  along  the  Hudson  one  comes  upon  a 
disused  mill-race.  Usually  there  is  water  in  it,  and  a 
superficial  glance  might  not  disclose  that  the  race  was 
not  in  operation.  But  closer  inspection  shows  that  the 
water  is  stagnant;  the  mill-race  has  become  a  standing 
ditch.  And  there  are  not  a  few  lives  of  which  it  is  a  pic- 
ture. A  JSTew  Testament  writer  speaks  of  some  in  his  day 
as  "holding  the  form  of  godliness,  but  having  denied  the 


POWEE  59 

power  thereof."  They  are  often  members  of  the  Church; 
they  are  apparently  interested  in  good  things;  their  lives 
seem  to  be  parallel  with  the  purpose  of  God  in  the  world ; 
they  are  not  empty  of  inspirations.  But  those  inspirations 
are  not  flowing  out  and  in.  They  are  the  remainders  of 
the  water  of  life  from  past  connections  through  an  inher- 
ited faith  or  an  earlier  devoutness.  Their  parents  had 
first-hand  contact  with  God,  or  in  their  own  childhood  there 
was  an  open  passageway  into  their  souls  from  Him.  The 
mill-wheel  may  still  be  in  place  and  an  old  factory  stand- 
ing beside  the  stream;  but  the  wheel  is  not  turning,  and 
nothing  is  produced  in  that  factory  for  the  spiritual 
enrichment  of  mankind.  The  upper-end  of  the  mill-race 
is  clogged.  Preoccupation  with  many  things  has  put  God 
out  of  mind ;  prayer  is  forgotten,  or  has  become  a  perfunc- 
tory routine;  there  is  no  commitment  of  self  to  God  day 
by  day  in  trustful  dependence.  Theirs  is  a  form  of  re- 
ligion without  its  power.  The  bed  of  the  mill-race  attests 
what  it  has  been.  The  pathos  of  an  impotent  Christian  is 
a  reminder  of  what  was  once  planned ; — yes,  and  of  what 
may  still  be,  if  the  connection  be  reopened ;  for  that  gives 
power :  "I  labor,  striving  according  to  His  working  which 
worketh  in  me  mightily." 


CHAPTER  IV 

ILLUMINATION 

IN"  that  section  of  its  course  where  the  Hudson  is  used 
as  a  source  of  power,  one  frequently  sees  the  force 
of  the  stream  transmuted  into  an  electric  current,  to 
furnish  light  for  towns  and  villages.     Men  of  practically 
all  faiths  have  found  illumination  in  their  contact  with 
God. 

The  pages  of  the  Bihle  are  full  of  this  experience.  "The 
Lord  is  my  light,"  one  of  the  psalmists  begins.  Another 
pictures  believers  turning  their  faces  Godward,  and  catch- 
ing and  reflecting  the  glow  of  dawn:  "They  looked 
unto  Him  and  were  radiant."  "When  Isaiah  describes 
what  the  Spirit  of  God  will  mean  to  the  ideal  Ruler 
of  the  nation,  he  stresses  his  intellectual  enlightenment: 
four  out  of  the  six  nouns  in  the  description  have  to  do 
with  the  enrichment  of  intelligence:  "The  Spirit  of  wis- 
dom and  understanding,  the  Spirit  of  counsel,  the  Spirit 
of  knowledge" ;  and  the  first  of  the  four  titles  applied  to 
this  Monarch  is  "Wonderful  Counsellor."  In  the  poetry 
and  proverbs  of  the  Hebrews,  we  are  told  again  and  again 
that  those  who  trust  Jehovah  find  guidance :  "He  leadeth 
me  in  paths  of  righteousness,"  "Thou  shalt  guide  me  with 
Thy  counsel,"  "In  all  thy  ways  acknowledge  Him,  and  He 
will  direct  thy  paths,"  "The  path  of  the  righteous  is  as 
the  dawning  light,  that  shinoth  more  and  more  unto  the 
perfect  day."    One  large  section  of  the  Biblical  literature 

60 


Illumination  61 

represents  God  as  coming  to  man  chiefly  as  Wisdom.  The 
Isew  Testament  is  even  more  full  than  the  Old  of  this  ex- 
perience of  enlightenment.  Paul  connects  the  coming  of 
Jesus  with  the  story  of  the  creation,  and  asserts:  "God, 
that  said.  Light  shall  shine  out  of  darkness,  shined  in 
our  hearts  to  give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory 
of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ."  John  declares  that 
"God  is  light,"  and  introduces  his  account  of  Jesus  with 
the  statement :  "The  life  was  the  light  of  men."  And  on 
Jesus'  own  lips  he  records  the  saying:  "I  am  the  light  of 
the  world:  he  that  foUoweth  Me  shall  not  walk  in  the 
darkness,  hut  shall  have  the  light  of  life."  The  climax 
of  the  whole  Bible  is  the  vision  of  the  city  of  God,  hrilliant 
in  nightless  day,  in  whose  light  the  nations  walk, — a  city 
whose  illumination  is  religion,  for  the  glory  of  God  light- 
ens it,  and  the  lamp  thereof  is  the  Lamb. 

Both  believing  and  unbelieving  men  agree  that  life  is  a 
puzzling  affair.  Along  with  these  utterances  of  enlight- 
enment on  the  pages  of  the  Bible,  one  finds  as  frank  ex- 
pressions of  bewilderment,  and  we  cannot  forget  that  He 
who  spoke  of  God  with  the  utmost  assurance  died  with  a 
question  on  His  lips:  "My  God,  why?"  The  confident 
Christian,  William  Wordsworth,  acknowledges 

"the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world," 

and  his  agnostic  admirer.  Sir  William  Watson,  agrees 
with  him: 

Think  not  thy  wisdom  can  illume  away 
The  ancient  tanglement  of  night  and  day. 


62  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion  ? 

Enough  to  acknowledge  both,  and  both  revere: 
They  see  not  clearliest  who  see  all  things  clear. 

In  ordinary  conversation  few  remarks  are  commoner  than : 
"Well,  this  is  a  queer  world."  All  our  attempts  to  reach 
an  explanation  that  will  carry  us  surefootedly  through  life 
must  begin  with  the  recognition  of  its  strangeness  and 
oddity.  Religious  and  unreligious  alike  admit  that  "it 
is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps" ;  but  the 
latter  think  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  use  the  best 
light  they  possess  in  themselves  and  stumble  on,  while  the 
former  are  confident  that  even  amid  the  puzzling  shadows, 
and  often  black  darkness,  it  is  possible  to  walk  in  the 
light  and  be  children  of  the  day. 

For  devout  men  and  women,  while  they  may  feel  them- 
selves hopelessly  puzzled,  begin  with  the  assertion :  "God 
knows."  A  Greek  dramatist  places  in  the  mouth  of  a 
character  caught  in  a  harrowing  tragedy  the  line : 

A  thought  deep  in  the  dark  of  my  mind  cleaves  to   a 
Great  Understanding. 

Augustine  in  his  Confessions  addresses  God  as  One  "in 
whose  presence  are  the  causes  of  all  uncertain  things  and 
....  with  whom  do  live  the  eternal  reasons  of  all  those 
contingent  chance-medleys,  for  which  we  can  give  no  rea- 
son." The  unbelieving  have  frequently  used  with  sarcasm 
the  saying  "God  knows."  The  Persian  skeptic,  Omar, 
writes : 

The  Ball  no  Question  makes  of  Ayes  and  ISToes, 
But  Eight  or  Left  as  strikes  the  Player  goes; 


Illumination  63 

And  He  that  toss'd  thee  down  into  the  Field, 
He  knows  about  it  all — HE  knows — HE  knows ! 

This  singular  world  has  seemed  to  not  a  few  thoughtful 
persons  a  grim  joke,  and  the  only  sound  they  could  fancy 
in  the  silent  skies  was  ironical  laughter.  That  mood  has 
not  been  altogether  lacking  among  the  believing.  The 
Old  Testament  several  times  ascribes  scornful  humor  to 
the  Most  High:  "He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  shall 
laugh."  The  sayings  of  Jesus  are  frequently  touched  with 
humor.  He  pokes  fun  at  bigoted  ecclesiastics  who  scrupu- 
lously strain  out  a  gnat  and  gulp  down  a  camel ;  and  some 
of  His  phrases,  which  over-serious  people  have  taken  with 
bald  literalism,  are  playful  exaggerations,  purposefully 
one-sided  to  force  His  listeners  to  think.  A  world  that  is 
queer  evokes  humor  in  the  Divinest;  but  it  is  the  light- 
hearted  humor  of  a  buoyant  spirit,  confident  that  even 
the  absurdities  of  life  are  being  worked  out  by  a  Father 
who  understands  and  loves. 

Believers  are  sure  that  God  knows,  but  His  children, 
however  intimate  they  may  become  with  Him,  cannot  al- 
ways expect  to  share  His  knowledge.  An  Old  Testament 
writer  has  a  suggestive  classification  when  he  divides  "se- 
cret things"  and  "things  that  are  revealed";  and  he  re- 
marks that  "the  secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our 
God."  We  are  not  forbidden  to  let  our  curiosity  pry  into 
them  and  "press  bold  to  the  tether's  end  allotted  to  this 
life's  intelligence."  But  when  the  tether's  end  is  reached, 
and  we  are  brought  up  with  a  jerk,  and  strain  and  tug  as 
we  may  can  get  no  farther  in  our  thinking,  it  is  surely 
something  to  be  able  to  say:  "This  is  God's  secret."  It 
may  well  be  that  He  would  like  to  tell  it  to  us  and  cannot, 


64  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

because  we  are  too  immature  to  understand  Him.  Those 
wlio  have  attained  closest  friendship  with  Him  do  not 
speak  of  Him  as  secretive.  Jesus  asserted:  ''There  is 
nothing  hid,  save  that  it  should  be  manifested ;  neither  was 
anything  made  secret,  but  that  it  should  come  to  light." 
The  obscurity  of  things  is  God's  way  of  tempting  us  to 
investigate  and  of  leading  us  on  to  more  accurate  knowl- 
edge— knowledge  which  is  the  result  of  our  own  discov- 
eries. But  whether  God  cannot,  or  of  purpose  does  not, 
make  plain  to  us  matters  which  we  are  dying  to  know, 
there  is  at  least  this  in  religion,  that  it  enables  believers 
"to  bear  without  resentment  the  divine  reserve."  Thomas 
Arnold  said:  "Before  a  confused  and  unconquerable  dif- 
ficulty my  mind  reposes  as  quietly  as  in  possession  of  a 
discovered  truth."  In  every  man's  life  there  are  experi- 
ences in  which  his  most  inquiring  thought  and  eager 
prayer  seem  to  be  answered :  "What  I  do  thou  knowest  not 
now;  but  thou  shalt  understand  hereafter."  In  a  world 
which  to  us  is  inherently  puzzling,  whether  it  was  meant 
to  be  so  or  not,  it  is  much  that  faith  helps  us  to  accept  the 
inexplicable  with  patience  and  hope. 

And  in  the  whole  queer  universe  nothing  is  queerer  to 
us  than  ourselves.     We  agree  with  Clough: 

What  we,  when  face  to  face  we  see 
The  Father  of  our  souls,  shall  be, 
John  tells  us,  doth  not  yet  appear; 
Ah !  did  he  tell  what  we  are  here  ? 

In  one  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward's  novels.  Lady  Lucy 
Marsham  says  to  Lady  Niton :  "I  thought,  Elizabeth,  you 


iLI-UMINATIOlSr  65 

would  have  tried  to  understand  me."  Elizabeth  Niton 
shook  her  head,  "There's  only  your  Maker  could  do  that, 
Lucy,  and  He  must  he  pretty  puzzled  to  account  for  you 
sometimes."  Wlien  we  are  overcome  by  feelings  beyond 
our  power  to  control,  when  we  tremble  at  disclosures  of 
capacities  for  iniquity  within  us  which  we  did  not  suspect 
were  there,  when  our  crankiness  and  stupidity  become  too 
difficult  for  us  to  manage,  it  is  no  small  matter  to  be  able 
to  look  up  and  say:  "He  knoweth  our  frame,"  and  to  trust 
Him  to  help  us  to  handle  ourselves.  "Thy  hands  have 
made  me  and  fashioned  me:  give  me  understanding  that 
I  may  learn  Thy  commandments."  Wlien  despite  damag- 
ing appearances  to  the  contrary  we  know  that  we  sincerely 
mean  to  do  right,  when  we  must  appeal  to  our  own  con- 
sciences against  the  disapproval  of  those  whom  we  most 
respect,  it  is  everything  to  be  able  to  say  with  Job:  "He 
knoweth  the  way  that  I  take" ;  and  with  Simon  Peter : 
"Lord,  Thou  knowest  all  things;  Thou  knowest  that  I 
love  Thee." 

There  are  many,  many  things  which  we  can  afford  not 
to  know;  our  only  concern  in  this  perplexing  world  is 
to  know  enough  to  live  usefully.  Religion  assures  us 
that  even  when  we  do  not  know  where  we  are  going,  or 
why  events  befall  us,  and  walk  as  in  a  maze,  we  maj  still 
be  divinely  guided.  A  prophet  sums  up  a  large  chapter 
of  religious  experience  when  he  makes  God  say:  "I  will 
bring  the  blind  by  a  way  that  they  know  not;  in  paths 
that  they  know  not  will  I  lead  them."  Those  of  us  with 
only  a  little  faith,  when  we  survey  our  past,  have  borne 
in  on  us  that  a  Wiser  than  we  has  had  a  hand  in  our  ca- 


66  What  Is  Theee  ix  Religion? 

reers.  We  maj  not  be  able  to  prove  it  to  others;  we 
should  not  care  to  try,  for  the  Tacts  arc  too  personal  to 
divulge;  but  for  ourselves  Ave  .^annot  help  feeling  that 
there  were  secret  preparations  for  things  as  yet  years 
ahead,  that  we  were  intentionally  thwarted  here  and  en- 
couraged there,  that  the  best  things  which  happened  us 
came  largely  without  our  effort,  and  sometimes  in  spite 
of  our  effort.  A  man  phrased  his  experience  to  an  in- 
quiring college  professor:  "God  has  frequently  stepped 
into  my  life  very  perceptibly."  We  conclude  with  George 
Eliot's  Silas  ITarner,  "There's  dealings  wi'  us,  there's 
dealings";  with  the  Quaker,  George  Fox,  we  speak  of 
"great  openings" ;  and  we  say  with  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son: "There  stood  at  the  wheel  that  unknown  steersman 
whom  we  call  God." 

An  English  man  of  letters  has  described  the  career  of 
one  of  his  own  friends: 


"He  had  to  bear  a  series  of  devastating  calamities.  He 
had  loved  the  warmth  and  nearness  of  his  home  circle 
more  deeply  than  most  men,  and  the  whole  of  it  was 
swept  away;  he  had  depended  for  both  stimulus  and  occu- 
pation upon  his  artistic  work,  and  the  power  was  taken 
from  him  at  the  moment  of  his  highest  achievement.  His 
loss  of  fortune  is  not  to  be  reckoned  among  his  calamities, 
because  it  was  no  calamity  to  him.  He  ended  by  finding 
a  richer  treasure  than  that  he  had  set  out  to  obtain ;  and 
I  remember  that  he  said  to  me  once,  not  long  before  his 
end,  that  whatever  others  might  feel  about  their  own  lives, 
he  could  not  for  a  moment  doubt  that  his  own  had  been 
an  education  of  a  deliberate  and  loving  kind,  and  that 
the  day  when  he  realized  that,  when  he  saw  that  there 
was  not  a  single  incident  in  his  life  that  had  not  a  deep 


Illumination  67 

and  an  intentional  value  for  him  was  one  of  the  happiest 
days  of  his  whole  existence." 

IN^ow  in  all  this  it  may  seem  that  religion  brings  no 
illumination;  it  brings  only  the  assurance  that  we  are  led 
in  the  dark.  But  that  is  not  how  it  seems  to  religious 
folk.  The  French  naturalist,  Jean  Henri  Fabre,  was 
once  asked  by  a  visitor:  "Do  you  believe  in  God?"  To 
which  he  replied  emphatically:  "I  can't  say  I  believe  in 
God;  I  see  Him.  Without  Him  I  understand  nothing; 
without  Him  all  is  darkness.  ISTot  only  have  I  retained 
this  conviction;  I  have  aggravated  or  ameliorated  it, 
whichever  you  please.  You  could  take  my  skin  from  me 
more  easily  than  my  faith  in  God."  A  similar  confession 
is  made  by  a  professor  of  Greek  in  the  Spanish  University 
of  Salamanca,  Don  Miguel  de  Unamuno,  who  says:  "I 
believe  in  God  as  I  believe  in  my  friends,  because  I  feel 
the  breath  of  His  affection,  feel  His  invisible  and  intan- 
gible hand,  drawing  me,  leading  me,  grasping  me ;  because 
I  possess  an  inner  consciousness  of  a  particular  providence 
and  of  a  universal  mind  that  marks  out  for  me  the  course 
of  my  destiny."  Others  who  would  hesitate  to  speak  of 
"seeing"  God,  or  of  possessing  this  inner  consciousness, 
would  say  that  He  is  "the  Master  Light  of  all  their  see- 
ing." God  is  an  assumption  which  illumines  and  inter- 
prets for  them  an  else  unintelligible  world.  In  His  light 
they  see  light.  One  of  the  leading  theological  teachers  of 
the  last  generation,  Henry  B.  Smith,  said:  "My  deter- 
mination to  seek  religion  was  formed  solely  in  conse- 
quence of  my  complete  persuasion  of  its  reasonableness. 
I  did  not  feel  any  need  of  it."    While  such  souls  lack  the 


68  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

mystic  sense  wliicli  eiiaWes  tliera  to  say  that  they  see  God, 
they  walk  in  His  brightness,  and  their  experience  validates 
for  them  the  assumption  which  they  have  made.  Their 
illumined  way  in  which  they  step  snrefootedly  convinces 
them  that  He  whom  they  have  darkly  trusted  is  light. 

Believers  never  stop  with  the  mere  assumption  of  God's 
existence;  they  are  confident  that  they  can  so  connect 
themselves  with  Him  that  He  will  lighten  their  path  in 
life.  We  may  illustrate  this  in  two  typical  instances  of 
men  who  expected  and  received  such  illumination. 

The  first  is  an  Old  Testament  story  of  guidance  in  one 
of  life's  most  momentous  choices — the  selection  of  a  wife. 
Abraham  and  his  confidential  servant,  to  whom  he  entrusts 
the  finding  of  a  wife  for  Isaac,  resolve  to  be  led  by  God, 
and  in  the  narrative  there  are  four  steps  which  were  taken 
to  secure  this  leading: 

First,  Abraham  and  the  servant  determine  to  follow 
God's  will,  not  their  own,  in  this  matter.  They  wish  it  to 
be  a  marriage  made  in  heaven ;  and  they  are  confident  that 
God  wills  for  Isaac  a  wife  who  will  share  his  faith  and 
be  sympathetic  with  the  purpose  to  which  his  life  is  dedi- 
cated. So  the  servant  is  sent  where  such  a  woman  is  likely 
to  be  found,  though  it  involves  a  long  journey.  There  is 
no  promise  of  illumination  except  to  the  obedient.  "Unto 
the  upright  there  ariseth  light  in  the  darkness."  The 
first  requisite  in  those  who  would  be  unerringly  led  is 
willingness  to  follow  God's  will  to  whatever  it  may  carry 
them. 

Second,  the  servant  puts  himself  into  a  receptive  atti- 
tude to  get  guidance.  He  prays :  "O  Lord,  send  me  good 
speed  this  day.    Behold  I  am  standing  by  the  fountain  of 


Illumhstation  69 

waters;  and  the  daughters  of  the  men  of  the  city  are 
coming  out  to  draw  water."  He  waits  upon  God;  he 
holds  his  mind  open  to  divine  suggestion. 

There  is  a  story  of  two  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  statesmen, 
that  Sir  Francis  "Walsingham,  wishing  to  consult  Lord 
Burleigh,  had  to  wait  in  the  latter's  office  because  Bur- 
leigh was  in  church  at  prayer.  When  he  came  into  the 
room,  Sir  Francis  said  jocularly  that  he  wished  himself 
so  good  a  servant  of  God  as  Lord  Burleigh,  but  that  he 
had  not  been  at  church  for  some  time  j)ast.  To  which 
Burleigh  gravely  replied:  "I  hold  it  meet  for  us  to  ask 
God's  grace  to  keep  us  sound  of  heart,  who  have  so  much 
in  our  power;  and  to  direct  us  to  our  well-doing  for  all 
the  people,  whom  it  is  easy  for  us  to  injure  and  min ;  and 
herein,  my  good  friend,  the  special  blessing  seemeth  meet 
to  be  discreetly  asked  and  wisely  worn."  Prayer  for  di- 
rection is  the  unfolding  of  the  mind  for  the  entrance 
of  light. 

Third,  the  servant  uses  his  brains.  One  might  think 
that  he  abdicates  the  use  of  his  intelligence  by  asking  for 
a  sign:  "Let  it  come  to  pass,  that  the  damsel  to  whom  I 
shall  say.  Let  down  thy  pitcher,  I  pray  thee,  that  I  may 
drink ;  and  she  shall  say.  Drink,  and  I  will  give  thy  cam- 
els drink  also ;  let  the  same  be  she  that  Thou  hast  appointed 
for  Thy  servant  Isaac."  Had  he  suggested  a  sign  that  was 
no  indication  of  the  girl's  character;  had  he  said.  Let  it 
be  the  girl  with  dark  hair,  or  with  red  in  her  dress,  it 
would  not  have  shown  that  he  was  testing  the  girl's  na- 
ture; but  knowing  Isaac's  lack  of  initiative  and  resource, 
the  girl  who  would  both  promptly  comply  with  a  request 
and  of  her  own  accord  suggest  something  additional  was 


70  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

the  type  of  ready  and  self-reliant  woman  whom  Isaac 
needed.  The  sign  was  not  an  attempt  of  this  man's  to 
shift  responsibility  from  himself  to  God,  but  to  let  God 
meet  and  guide  his  own  intelligence. 

There  is  a  similar  use  of  a  sign  from  God  in  a  far- 
reaching  decision  in  our  American  history.  Shortly  after 
the  battle  of  Antietam,  Mr.  Lincoln  called  his  cabinet  to- 
gether, and  taking  up  a  draft  of  a  proclamation  freeing 
the  slaves  which  he  had  previously  submitted,  said,  "When 
the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I  determined,  as  soon 
as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to  issue  a  Procla- 
mation of  Emancipation  such  as  I  thought  likely  to  be 
most  useful.  I  said  nothing  to  any  one,  but  I  made  the 
promise  to  myself  and" — here  he  hesitated  a  little — "to 
my  Maker.  The  rebel  army  is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am 
going  to  fulfill  that  promise."  "It  might  be  thought 
strange,"  he  added,  "that  he  had  in  this  way  submitted 
the  disposal  of  matters,  when  the  way  was  not  clear  to  his 
mind  what  he  should  do.  God  had  decided  this  question 
in  favor  of  the  slaves."  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  shrewd  judge 
of  public  opinion,  and  he  was  by  no  means  abdicating  the 
use  of  his  brains.  A  decisive  victory  seemed  to  him  the 
opportune  moment  to  launch  this  contemplated  procla- 
mation.   He  let  God  meet  his  own  best  judgment. 

Fourth,  having  put  himself  in  line  with  God's  will, 
having  prayed,  having  used  his  brains,  Abraham's  serv- 
ant waits  for  an  inward  sense  of  assurance  before  he  com- 
pletes his  decision:  "And  the  man  looked  steadfastly  on 
her,  holding  his  peace,  to  know  whether  the  Lord  had 
made  his  journey  prosperous  or  not."  Those  who  are 
accustomed  to  asking  God's  guidance  know  the  feeling  of 


Illumination  Y1 

being  right  for  which  this  faithful  man  was  waiting.  Fre- 
quently one  hears  people  say:  "Everything  seemed  favor- 
able, but  somehow  I  did  not  feel  satisfied  to  go  on" ;  or 
"There  were  many  contrary  opinions,  but  I  could  not  get 
away  from  the  sense  that  it  just  had  to  be."  One  put  it 
colloquially:  "I  had  been  thinking  and  praying  to  see 
my  way,  and  it  came  over  me  in  a  flash;  I  just  had  a 
'hunch'  that  this  was  God's  plan  for  me."  "What  a  differ- 
ence the  presence  or  absence  of  this  assurance  makes !  It 
is  light  versus  darkness. 

In  1855  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  was  asked  by  Lord 
Palmerston  to  accept  office  in  the  Cabinet.  "I  never  was 
in  such  perplexity  in  my  life,"  he  told  a  friend.  "On  one 
side  were  ranged  wife,  relations,  friends,  ambition,  influ- 
ence; on  the  other,  my  own  objections,  which  seemed 
sometimes  to  weigh  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the 
arguments  brought  against  them.  I  could  not  satisfy 
myself  that  to  accept  office  was  a  divine  call ;  I  luas  satis- 
fied that  God  had  called  me  to  labor  among  the  poor. 
There  was  no  Urim  and  Thummim;  no  open  vision.  I 
could  do  nothing  but  postpone,  and,  in  doing  this,  I  was 
placing  Palmerston  in  a  most  awkward  position.  But 
God  interposed  for  me."  And  he  told  how  in  an  uncer- 
tain frame  of  mind  he  prepared  to  go  to  the  Palace  to 
meet  the  Queen  with  the  rest  of  the  cabinet  ministers.  "I 
never  felt  so  helpless.  I  seemed  to  be  hurried  along  with- 
out a  will  of  my  own.  I  went  and  dressed,  and  then,  while 
I  was  waiting  for  the  carriage,  I  went  down  on  my  knees 
and  prayed  for  counsel.  Then,  there  was  some  one  at 
the  door,  as  I  thought  to  say  that  the  carriage  was  ready. 
Instead  of  that  a  note,  hurriedly  written  in  pencil,  was 


Y2  What  Is  Theee  ix  Religion  ? 

put  into  my  hands.  It  was  from  Palmerston:  'Don't  go 
to  the  Palace.'  That  was  thirty  years  ago,"  added  the 
Earl,  ''but  I  dance  with  joy  at  the  remembrance  of  that 
interposition,  as  I  did  when  it  happened."  Everything 
seemed  to  make  for  his  acceptance,  but  he  lacked  the  sense 
that  it  was  God's  will,  and  waiting,  as  too  few  are  suf- 
ficiently patient  to  wait,  God's  leading  came. 

The  other  instance  is  that  which  is  supreme  for  Chris- 
tians— Jesus'  search  for  light  which  led  to  His  decision 
that  the  cross  was  His  Father's  will  for  Him.  In  that 
search,  as  it  is  summed  up  in  its  final  moment  in  Geth- 
semane,  we  discover  the  same  four  steps  so  clearly  marked 
in  the  Old  Testament  example. 

First,  He  committed  Himself  to  God's  purpose,  and  to 
that  alone:  "'Not  as  I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt." 

Second,  He  prayed,  holding  His  mind  alert  and  open 
to  admit  God's  light.  ISTot  once  but  three  times  in  the 
Garden  He  addressed  HimseK  directly  to  heaven :  "O  My 
Father." 

Third,  He  used  His  judg-ment  as  far  as  His  mind  could 
take  Him.  "If  it  be  possible"  shows  His  thought  can- 
vassing alternatives,  and  time  after  time  returning  to 
death  as  the  Divine  cup  for  Him. 

Fourth,  He  waited  for  the  feeling  of  certainty.  How 
else  explain  the  repeated  prayer  ?  The  light  did  not  break 
clearly  all  at  once,  so  He  kept  on  seeking  it  until  the 
shadows  dissolved.  Matthew's  account  makes  an  inter- 
esting interpretative  change  in  the  material  taken  from 
Mark.  The  latter  reads:  "Again  He  went  away,  and 
prayed,  saying  tlie  same  words."  But  according  to  the 
first  evangelist,  He  had  prayed :  "My  Father,  if  it  be  pos- 


Illumination  73 

sible,  let  this  cup  pass  away  from  Me,"  while  the  second 
prayer  is  given :  "My  Father,  if  this  cup  cannot  pass  away 
from  Me  except  I  drink  it.  Thy  will  be  done."  Is  not 
this  evangelist  trying  to  interpret  Jesus  as  becoming  more 
confident  each  time  He  knelt  that  death  was  the  cup  as- 
signed Him?    Waiting  on  God,  assurance  came. 

What  is  there  in  religion  to  illumine  life's  perplexities  ? 
Is  it  fanciful  to  press  the  picture  of  our  parable  of  the 
Hudson — a  town  lighted  by  an  electric  current  generated 
by  the  force  of  the  stream?  The  illumination  does  not 
abolish  night;  all  about  the  town  is  the  enveloping  black- 
ness, and  only  here  and  there  the  lights  gleam.  Life's 
mystery  is  about  those  who  believe.  "We  know  in  part." 
But  why  lay  the  accent  on  "in  part  ?"  Suppose  it  be  night, 
the  streets  of  the  town  are  light  enough  for  its  inhabitants 
to  walk  safely  and  its  homes  glow  with  friendly  brightness. 
Suppose  our  knowledge  be  partial,  still  "we  Tcnoio."  We 
move  along  life's  puzzling  ways  illumined  by  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  and  homes  and  shops  and  pleasure-places  and 
public  offices  are  lit  with  a  kindly  light,  wherever  His 
love  glows. 

The  current  of  the  river  had  to  be  transmuted  before 
it  gave  light,  and  transmuted  by  men's  skill  and  labor. 
God's  wisdom  flows  as  a  river  in  the  experiences  of 
the  godly  of  all  the  ages,  in  the  many-times-tested  ex- 
periences preserved  in  the  Bible,  most  fully  in  the 
experience  of  Jesus.  This  stream  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
flows  still  in  our  time,  and  we  can  gain  from  present 
occurrences,  from  books,  from  the  voices  of  the  living, 
from  the  memories  of  the  dead,  hints  and  intimations 
of  God's  will  for  us.     But  there  must  be  something  in 


74  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

us  which  takes  the  hint,  which  sees  the  light  of  Christ, 
which  appreciates  and  interprets  the  wisdom  of  the 
seers  of  old.  Call  it  spiritual  discernment,  the 
intuition  of  faith,  the  inward  light,  or  by  some  other 
name,  it  is  the  Spirit  of  God  formed  in  us.  The  light 
which  is  latent  in  God's  presence  has  to  be  transmuted  into 
enlightened  eyes  in  our  hearts.  Here  is  the  process  of 
transmutation — commitment  to  God's  purpose  in  Christ, 
minds  held  hy  prayer  receptive  to  His  suggestion,  intel- 
ligence actively  thinking  out  the  most  Christlike  course 
available,  self-controlled  waiting  for  assurance.  Obvi- 
ously the  process  does  not  need  to  be  consciously  repeated 
with  every  decision.  Wlien  the  electric  light  is  once  in- 
stalled, householders  are  not  aware  of  the  part  played  by 
the  Hudson  in  generating  the  current  when  they  press  a 
button  and  turn  on  a  light.  Believers  who  establish  re- 
lations with  the  living  God  have  in  themselves  the  mind 
of  Christ.  But  when  for  some  reason  the  illumination 
seems  dim,  the  authorities  of  the  electric  company  investi- 
gate the  connections.  The  transmuting  process  must  be 
in  such  operation  that  the  light  shines  where  its  illumina- 
tion is  required.  Believers  must  go  over  their  contacts 
with  God  sufficiently  often  to  make  sure  that  within  them 
is  the  brightness  which  lit  up  the  path  of  Christ:  "If  a 
man  walk  in  the  night,  he  stumbleth,  because  the  light  is 
not  in  him."  "If  therefore  thine  eye  be  single,  thy 
whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light." 


CHAPTEK  V 

FERTILITY 

1]^  the  valley  through  which  the  Hudson  River  flows 
the  countryside  is  more  fertile — meadows  are  richer, 
foliage  more  luxuriant,  orchards  more  fruitful,  crops 
more  abundant — because  of  the  presence  of  this  body  of 
running  water  with  its  unfailing  supply  of  moisture. 
There  is  a  like  result  in  human  life  from  the  stream  of 
inspirations  in  man's  intercourse  with  the  living  God. 

This  picture  of  a  river  with  fruitful  trees  along  its 
banks  meets  us  repeatedly  in  the  Bible.  "Blessed  is  the 
man  that  trusteth  in  the  Lord,  and  whose  trust  the  Lord 
is,"  says  Jeremiah.  "For  he  shall  be  as  a  tree  planted  by 
the  waters,  that  spreadeth  out  its  roots  by  the  river,  and 
shall  not  fear  when  heat  cometh,  but  its  leaf  shall  be  green ; 
and  shall  not  be  careful  in  the  year  of  drought,  neither 
shall  cease  from  yielding  fruit."  The  First  Psalm  bor- 
rows this  simile  in  describing  the  godly  as  "a  tree  planted 
by  the  streams  of  water,  that  bringeth  forth  its  fruit  in 
its  season,  whose  leaf  also  doth  not  wither."  "When 
Ezekiel  portrays  a  river  emerging  from  the  temple — 
symbol  of  the  spiritual  influence  of  the  center  of  worship 
— he  writes :  "By  the  river  upon  the  bank  thereof,  on  tlr's 
side  and  on  that  side,  shall  grow  every  tree  for  food,  whose 
leaf  shall  not  wither,  neither  shall  the  fruit  thereof  fail; 
it  shall  bring  forth  new  fruit  every  month,  because  the 
waters  thereof  issue  out  of  the  sanctuary;  and  the  fruit 
thereof  shall  be  for  food,  and  the  leaf  thereof  for  healing." 

75 


76  "What  Is  Theee  12c  Religion? 

The  seer  on  Patmos  incorporated  tliat  description  into  his 
vision  of  the  holj  citj,  where  beside  the  crystal  clear  water 
grows  the  tree  of  life,  with  its  twelve  crops  of  fniit  and 
its  leaves  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  Another  psalm- 
ist sings  the  flourishing  lives  of  those  planted  in  the  fertile 
courts  of  the  house  of  God:  "They  shall  still  bring  forth 
fruit  in  old  age ;  they  shall  be  full  of  sap  and  green." 

Jesus  stresses  fruitfulness  as  a  result  of  true  faith, 
but,  instead  of  the  metajDhor  of  a  river  which  moistens  the 
soil,  He  prefers  that  of  seed.  Is  it  fanciful  to  suggest 
that  He  felt  that  human  nature  needed  not  only  watering, 
but  the  introduction  of  new  elements,  if  it  were  to 
bear  a  divine  harvest  ?  He  speaks  of  Himself  as  the 
Vine  and  His  disciples  as  grafted  branches,  of  His 
word  as  falling  on  various  soils  with  various  results,  of 
Himself  as  planted  seed,  dying  in  the  ground  and  certain 
to  be  not  without  much  fruit.  St.  Paul  lists  the  crops  to 
be  expected  where  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  is  sown  in  human 
hearts.  "The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  long- 
suffering,  kindness,  goodness,  faithfulness,  meekness,  self- 
control." 

The  early  exponents  of  the  Christian  faith  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  point  to  its  results  in  character  and  conduct  as  the 
chief  evidence  of  its  value.  Typical  of  many  similar  state- 
ments is  that  made  by  the  converted  Athenian  philosopher, 
Athenagoras,  to  the  Emperors  Aurelius  and  Commodus, 
about  177  A.D. :  "Among  us  you  will  find  uneducated  per- 
sons, and  artisans,  and  old  women,  who  if  they  are  unable 
in  words  to  prove  the  benefit  of  our  doctrine,  yet  by  their 
deeds  exhibit  the  benefit  arising  from  their  persuasion  of 
its  truth :  they  do  not  rehearse  speeches,  but  exhibit  good 


Fertility  77 

works."  Both  friendly  and  unfriendly  historians  of  the 
spread  of  Christianity  ascribe  a  large  measure  of  its  suc- 
cess to  the  good  and  useful  people  it  produced.  Readers 
of  "Walter  Pater  will  put  beside  the  statement  of  Athen- 
agoras  his  imaginative  account  of  the  first  Christian  cere- 
mony at  which  Marius  was  present  in  the  Lararium  of 
the  Cecilian  Villa  at  Rome,  and  saw  "the  wonderful  spec- 
tacle of  those  who  believed." 

"The  people  here  collected  might  have  figured  as  the 
earliest  handsel  or  pattern  of  a  new  world,  from  the  very 
face  of  which  discontent  had  passed  away.  .  .  .  Was 
some  credible  message  from  beyond  'the  flaming  rampart 
of  the  world' — a  message  of  hope  regarding  the  place  of 
men's  souls  and  their  interest  in  the  sum  of  things — al- 
ready moulding  anew  their  very  bodies,  and  looks,  and 
voices,  now  and  here  ?  At  least  there  was  a  cleansing  and 
a  kindling  flame  at  work  in  them,  which  seemed  to  make 
everything  else  Marius  had  ever  known  look  vulgar  and 
mean." 

'Nor  need  we  turn  our  eyes  backwards  across  many 
centuries  to  catch  sight  of  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  of 
Christ.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in  his  volume  on  the 
South  Seas,  paints  a  portrait  of  a  native  Christian  in 
whom  faith  had  been  "highly  fructifying."  He  speaks 
of  Maka,  an  Hawaiian  evangelist  in  the  Gilbert  Islands, 
as  "the  best  specimen  of  the  Christian  hero  that  I  have 
ever  met." 

"He  had  saved  two  lives  at  the  risk  of  his  own ;  like 
ITathan,  he  had  bearded  a  tyrant  in  the  hour  of  blood; 
when  a  whole  white  population  fled,  he  alone  stood  to  his 
duty ;  and  his  behavior  under  domestic  sorrow  with  which 


YS  What  Is  Theee  ii^  Religion  ? 

the  public  has  no  concern  filled  the  heholder  with  s^Tnpathy 
and  admiration.  A  poor  little  smiling  laborious  man  he 
looked;  and  you  would  have  thought  he  had  nothing  in 
him  but  that  of  which  he  had  too  much — facile  e:ood  na- 
ture. 


And  not  only  in  transfigured  individuals,  but  in  the  fam- 
ily-life, the  social  customs,  the  public  spirit,  of  trans- 
formed communities,  the  stream  of  the  Christian  faith 
evidences  its  fertilizing  presence. 

It  may  be  worth  our  while  to  dwell  a  moment  upon 
the  distinction  between  religion  as  something  useful  and  as 
something  fruitful.  In  our  day  almost  everything  is  ap- 
praised by  what  it  can  do,  and  do  forthwith.  The  value 
of  a  church  is  apt  to  be  computed  by  the  number  of  help- 
ful services  which  the  organization  renders  to  the  neigh- 
borhood. Sunday  School  teaching  and  sermons  are  meas- 
ured by  their  immediate  effects — by  what  they  induce 
younger  and  older  hearers  to  go  out  and  attempt.  But 
the  Bible  does  not  apply  this  utilitarian  standard  to  re- 
ligion. Men  do  not  at  once  notice  the  connection  between 
the  fertility  of  the  Hudson  Valley  and  the  river  which 
flows  through  it.  The  moisture  which  enriches  fields 
and  gardens  comes  circuitously  through  the  atmosphere 
from  the  water  in  the  stream.  The  work  of  the  church 
does  not  consist  to  any  great  extent  in  the  activities 
which  can  be  listed  as  its  ministry  to  the  community; 
they  are  never  more  than  a  small  fraction  of  its  con- 
tribution. Its  main  output  is  in  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren, whose  thoughts,  sympathies  and  consciences  it  has 
helped  to  grow  towards  Christlikeness,  and  in  the  re- 
sults of  their  lives  through  many  years  in  homes  and 


Fertility  T9 

schools  and  business,  as  friends  and  citizens,  and  through 
eternity  in  the  city  of  God.  Faith  touches  the  soil  with 
the  fructifying  Spirit  of  God,  and  all  manner  of  crops 
are  harvested  upon  it. 

With  our  impatience  for  instantaneous  and  measurable 
returns,  men  often  ask  of  what  good  is  church-going  and 
family  worship  and  personal  prayer  and  Bible  study  ?  Oc- 
casionally there  are  immediate  consequences — flashes  of 
insight,  kindlings  of  enthusiasm,  awakenings  of  the  soul ; 
but  these  are  rare.  The  dew  which  forms  on  the  ground 
or  the  mist  which  covers  a  valley  or  the  drops  which  seep 
into  the  soil  from  a  shower  seldom  produce  striking  ef- 
fects; but  any  chemist  can  tell  us  of  marvelous  processes 
that  begin  when  water  touches  the  earth,  and  statisticians 
with  their  figures  of  crops  per  acre  can  show  an  impressive 
difference  to  be  credited  to  the  presence  of  a  steady  stream 
like  the  Hudson.  The  many  who  so  lightly  discard  the 
habit  of  regular  attendance  at  church,  and  put  aside  fam- 
ily prayers  as  an  antiquated  custom,  and  think  a  Sunday 
in  the  country  more  beneficial  for  their  children  than  un- 
interrupted Sunday  School-going,  scarcely  realize  that 
they  are  cutting  themselves  and  their  boys  and  girls  off 
from  fructifying  contacts  with  the  stream  of  spiritual 
influences  which  rolls  through  the  ages  in  the  Christian 
Church.  The  loss  is  not  at  once  apparent;  but  there  are 
many  families  where  there  are  signs  of  pitiable  spiritual 
drought. 

It  is  not  only  the  meadows  upon  the  banks  of  a  river 
which  are  enriched  by  it.  The  moisture  in  the  stream 
affects  the  entire  valley,  and  fields  several  miles  away  from 
the  water  bear  larger  harvests  because  the  stream  is  there. 


80  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion  ? 

It  is  not  tliose  alone  who  are  themselves  in  conscious  fel- 
lowship with  God  who  are  benefited  by  religion.  Many- 
persons  who  never  open  a  Bible  or  darken  a  church-door 
are  influenced  in  their  thinking,  their  motives,  their  ideals, 
by  the  presence  of  a  flow  of  Christ's  Spirit  in  their  neigh- 
borhood. Those  who  maintain  religious  institutions  per- 
form a  far-reaching  service  to  the  community.  The  num- 
ber present  at  worship  on  any  Sunday  is  no  accurate  cri- 
terion of  the  result  upon  a  city  of  holding  up  publicly  the 
faith  and  purpose  of  Jesus.  One  cannot  calculate  the  in- 
fluence of  Christianity  in  a  nation  by  the  figures  of  Church 
membership.  The  relatively  small  Christian  Church  in 
Japan  exercises  an  effect  upon  the  moral  standards  of  that 
people  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  size.  The  Spirit  of 
Jesus  in  a  company  of  disciples  in  any  land  penetrates 
the  press,  education,  business-life,  amusements,  govern- 
ment ;  it  is  as  pervasive  as  the  atmosphere  which  it  charges 
with. moisture.  To  be  sure  a  tiny  brook  cannot  affect  as 
extensive  an  area  as  the  mighty  volume  of  water  in  the 
Hudson  Eiver.  We  are  vitally  concerned  with  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  have  direct  dealing  with  the  living  God, 
and  whose  lives  form  the  river-bed  through  which  the 
stream  of  His  Spirit  takes  its  course.  But  it  is  hearten- 
ing to  recall  that  a  river's  fructifying  influence  extends 
far  beyond  the  fields  along  its  banks.  'No  Sunday  School 
teacher  seated  in  the  midst  of  a  circle  of  children  can  tell 
how  wide  is  the  area  of  fruitfulness  from  the  lessons  im- 
parted in  a  morning's  lesson.  No  company  of  faithful 
churchmen  who  keep  a  congregation's  organization  alive 
and  active  can  measure  the  extent  of  its  fertilizing  touch 
upon  a  town's  or  a  nation's  life.     A  prophet,  addressing 


Fertility  81 

a  remnant  of  religiously  susceptible  persons,  spoke  through 
them  to  an  entire  people  when  he  said:  "Thou  shalt  be 
like  a  watered  garden." 

It  is  fair  to  remember  that  moisture  in  enriehins:  the 
soil  increases  the  crop  of  weeds  as  well  as  the  harvest  of 
useful  vegetation.  Religious  movements  always  show 
mixed  results;  but  that  is  not  to  be  blamed  upon  the 
spiritual  inspirations  which  they  bring.  There  are  vari- 
ous seeds  present  in  every  community,  and  the  moisture 
accelerates  the  growth  of  tares  along  with  that  of  wheat. 
George  Eliot  put  this  inimitably  in  her  account  of  the  re- 
ligious interest  which  the  preaching  of  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Tryan  brought  to  the  village  of  Milby: 

"Religious  ideas,"  she  wrote,  "have  the  fate  of  melo- 
dies, which,  once  set  afloat  in  the  world,  are  taken  up  by 
all  sorts  of  instruments,  some  of  them  woefully  coarse, 
feeble,  or  out  of  tune,  until  people  are  in  danger  of  cry- 
ing out  that  the  melody  itself  is  detestable.  It  may  be 
that  some  of  Mr.  Tryan's  hearers  had  gained  a  religious 
vocabulary  rather  than  religious  experience ;  that  here  and 
there  a  weaver's  wife,  who,  a  few  months  before,  had 
been  simply  a  silly  slattern,  was  converted  into  that  more 
complex  nuisance,  a  silly  and  sanctimonious  slattern ;  that 
the  old  Adam,  with  the  pertinacity  of  middle  age,  contin- 
ued to  tell  fibs  behind  the  counter,  notwithstanding  the 
new  Adam's  addiction  to  Bible-reading  and  family  prayer ; 
that  the  children  in  the  Paddiford  Sunday  School  had 
their  memories  crammed  with  phrases  about  the  blood  of 
cleansing,  imputed  righteousness,  and  justification  by 
faith  alone,  which  an  experience  lying  principally  in 
chuck-farthing,  hop-scotch,  parental  slappings,  and  long- 
ings after  unattainable  lollypop,  served  rather  to  darken 
than  to  illustrate ;  and  that  at  Milby,  in  those  distant 
days,  as  in  all  other  times  and  places  where  the  atmos- 


82  What  Is  There  in  RELiGioisr? 

phere  is  ehauging,  and  men  are  inhaling  the  stimulus  of 
new  ideas,  folly  often  mistook  itself  for  wisdom,  ignor- 
ance gave  itself  airs  of  knowledge,  and  selfishness,  turning 
its  eyes  upward,  called  itself  religion.  Nevertheless 
Evangelicalism  had  brought  into  palpable  existence  and 
operation  in  Milby  society  that  idea  of  duty,  that  recog- 
nition of  something  to  be  lived  for  beyond  the  mere  satis- 
faction of  self,  which  is  to  the  moral  life  what  the  addi- 
tion of  a  great  central  ganglion  is  to  animal  life.  .  .  . 
Miss  Rebecca  Linnet,  in  quiet  attire,  with  a  somewhat 
excessive  solemnity  of  countenance,  teaching  at  the  Sun- 
day School,  visiting  the  poor,  and  striving  after  a  standard 
of  purity  and  goodness,  has  surely  more  moral  loveliness 
than  in  those  flaunting  peony-days,  when  she  had  no  other 
model  than  the  costumes  of  the  heroines  in  the  circulating 
library.  Miss  Eliza  Pratt,  listening  in  rapt  attention  to 
Mr.  Tryan's  evening  lecture,  no  doubt  found  evangelical 
channels  for  vanity  and  egoism;  but  she  was  clearly  in 
moral  advance  of  Miss  Phipps  giggling  under  her  feathers 
at  old  Mr.  Crewe's  peculiarities  of  enunciation.  And  even 
elderly  fathers  and  mothers,  with  minds,  like  Mrs,  Lin- 
net's too  tough  to  imbibe  much  doctrine,  were  the  better 
for  having  their  hearts  inclined  towards  the  new  preacher 
as  a  messenger  from  God.  They  became  ashamed,  per- 
haps, of  their  trivial,  futile  past." 

This  is  admirably  said,  and  describes  not  inaccurately 
what  occurs  in  many  communities  among  ourselves.  And 
it  is  the  strange  assortment  of  effects,  more  and  less  de- 
sirable, which  makes  the  fi-uitfulness  of  religion  some- 
times open  to  question.  The  same  stimulus  which  pro- 
duces genuinely  saintly  qualities  often  intensifies  ugly 
traits,  enthusiasm  for  righteousness  appears  commingled 
with  bigoted  intolerance,  sympathy  with  the  down-trod- 
den may  have  at  its  side  an  unfeeling  disregard  of  the  well- 


Fertility  83 

to-do,  a  passion  to  enlighten  souls  in  the  ends  of  the  earth 
may  coexist  with  a  shocking  obtuseness  to  social  injus- 
tices at  one's  own  door.  But  the  number  and  strength  of 
the  weeds  are  evidence  of  a  very  fructifying  factor,  and 
the  intense  results  of  religious  awakenings  are  proof  of 
the  fertilizing  touch  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  We  need  to 
supplement  our  simile  of  a  river  with  Jesus'  metaphor  of 
seed.  We  must  take  pains  that  the  Spirit  we  bring  is  the 
authentic  Spirit  of  Jesus:  the  Christlike  God  within  us 
will  produce  fruits  akin  to  those  of  Jesus'  own  character 
and  work. 

In  both  Ezekiel's  and  John's  descriptions  of  the  trees 
beside  the  river  of  life  the  leaves  are  said  to  be  for  healing. 
Health  is  one  result  of  religion,  and  a  very  important 
result.  But  no  one  grows  fruit-trees  for  their  leaves; 
leaves  are  incidental.  The  growth  fertilized  by  religion 
is  not  primarily  physical  health;  and  the  instant  health 
becomes  the  main  preoccupation  of  the  devout,  you  have 
a  debased  fruitfulness — trees  running  to  leaves.  Examine 
the  votive  tablets  on  the  walls  of  some  church  where  phys- 
ical miracles  are  expected,  as  in  the  Basilica  at  Lourdes 
or  in  the  large  church  at  Sainte  Anne-de  Beaupre,  and  one 
is  struck  by  the  absence  of  expressions  of  gratitude  for 
divine  assistance  to  become  more  self-controlled,  more 
considerate,  more  responsible,  more  consecrated.  Go  to 
the  testimony  meetings  of  cults  which  stress  religious 
healing  apart  from  medical  and  surgical  means,  and  while 
speaker  after  speaker  will  regale  the  company  with  tales 
of  floating  kidneys  marvelously  anchored,  or  an  appendix 
miraculously  made  innocuous,  which  some  surgeon  is  al- 
leged to  have  predicted  would  burst  fatally  within  twenty- 


84  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion  ? 

four  hours  (and  there  are  unfortunately  accredited  physi- 
cians who  tell  patients  luridly  terrifying  narratives  of 
possible  or  probable  disasters  in  the  mysterious  inner  re- 
gions of  their  bodily  organism) — while  speaker  after 
speaker  will  describe  maladies  cured  and  accidents  averted 
and  even  financial  prosperity  attained  from  "demonstrat- 
ing" with  religious  formulae,  there  will  scarcely  be  heard 
a  syllable  of  advances  in  patience,  in  fidelity  to  duty,  in 
tender  sympathy  with  those  whose  hearts  ache,  in  sense  of 
social  obligation — in  short  of  advances  in  justice  and 
mercy  and  faithfulness,  which  Jesus  called  the  weightier 
matters.  Leaves  are  being  given  the  attention  which 
should  be  devoted  to  fruits. 

But  among  ourselves  we  have  often  forgotten  that  our 
fruit-trees  possess  leaves,  and  that  these  are  for  healing. 
Genuine  Christian  faith  undoubtedly  affects  physical 
health ;  how-could  it  be  otherwise  ?  The  trust  in  a  fatherly 
God  which  supplies  serenity  and  banishes  worry,  the  pre- 
occupation with  the  interests  of  Christ's  cause  in  the 
world  which  takes  the  mind  off  self  and  leaves  no  time 
for  iancjing  ills,  the  consecration  of  one's  body  to  His 
service  which  compels  one  to  keep  healthy  that  which  is 
God's,  and  not  harm  it  by  dissipation,  over-eating,  bad 
hours,  lack  of  exercise,  and  any  neglect  of  the  known  laws 
of  well-being,  the  dedication  of  means  to  Christ's  king- 
dom forbidding  us  to  squander  them  on  self-indulgence 
(a  productive  cause  of  much  sickness),  above  all  the  vital- 
ization  of  the  spirit  daily  with  supplies  of  God's  life,  the 
feeling  of  adequacy  for  one's  work  because  His  strength 
and  wisdom  are  at  one's  call,  the  cleansing  of  the  heart 
from  the  sickening  presence  of  envy,  greed,  bitterness, 


FEBTrLITY  85 

revenge  and  covetousness,  by  the  inflow  of  Christ's  love, 
surely  all  these  are  most  potent  forces  for  health  of  body 
and  of  mind.  The  average  church  has  paid  too  little  at- 
tention to  training  its  people  to  employ  their  spiritual 
resources  to  overcome  the  fears  which  inhibit  their  happi- 
ness and  to  sublimate  the  passions  which  misdirect  their 
mental  life.  Happily  neurologists  now  recognize  the  ally 
which  they  may  find  in  religion,  and  the  religious  leader 
must  avail  himself  of  the  knowledge  which  psychotherapy 
places  at  his  disposal.  Explicit  education  in  the  use  of 
faith  to  assist  wholesome  physical  living  ought  to  be  part 
of  the  program  of  every  Sunday  School  and  church.  But 
we  must  not  forget  that  our  most  successful  orchards  are 
conducted  by  men  who  devote  their  attention  to  making 
the  trees  bear  fruit,  and  think  only  incidentally  of  their 
foliage.  The  healthiest  Christians  will  concentrate  on 
the  work  which  is  given  them  to  do,  and  the  manner  of 
men  they  must  show  themselves,  and  let  their  physical  con- 
dition be  a  subordinate,  and  usually  unthought-of  detail, 
in  keeping  themselves  fit  to  be  partners  of  their  Father 
in  His  business. 

And  what  marvelous  fruits  are  grown  on  soil  enriched 
by  religious  faith !  Professor  Hocking  has  drawn  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  great  ages  of  religion  have  pre- 
ceded the  great  ages  of  art  and  of  science,  "for  they  were 
attending  to  the  fertilization  of  the  ground."  Where  a 
vital  spiritual  movement  has  swept  over  a  people,  it  has 
often  prepared  the  soil  for  a  development  in  music,  in 
literature,  in  industrial  expansion,  and  above  all  in  hu- 
manitarian progress.  The  streams  set  flowing  by  the 
preaching  of  the  Evangelicals,  Wesley  and  Whitefield  and 


86  What  Is  Theee  iisr  RELiGioisr  ? 

their  contemporaries,  a  century  and  a  half  ago  in  Britain 
and  America,  had  vast  consequences  in  creating  a  new 
social  conscience.  The  preachers  themselves  laid  little 
stress  on  social  changes:  their  one  concern  was  to  link 
men's  souls  to  God  in  Christ.  But  Christ-touched  men 
begin  to  feel,  to  think  and  to  purpose  more  fraternally. 
A  Howard  takes  the  prisons  of  his  own  country  and  of 
Europe  on  his  conscience ;  a  Wilberforce  is  burdened  with 
the  miseries  of  the  traffic  in  African  slaves ;  a  Shaftesbury 
is  made  wretched  by  the  plight  of  children  in  factories,  of 
little  boys  and  girls  inhumanly  used  as  chimney-sweeps, 
of  lunatics  handled  with  brutality,  of  operatives  in  mines 
and  work-shops  doomed  to  overlong  hours  of  monotonous 
toil.  Societies  for  the  correction  of  abuses,  for  the  protec- 
tion of  some  oppressed  group,  for  the  care  of  a  neglected 
class  in  the  community,  for  the  spread  of  the  Bible,  of 
good  literature,  of  the  sway  of  Christ  the  world  over, 
spring  up  in  the  wake  of  the  evangelical  preaching.  It  is 
frequently  not  the  harvests  directly  intended  which  are 
the  most  important  results  of  the  work  of  those  who  in- 
spire men  with  the  Spirit  of  God.  Keligion  fertilizes 
the  soil,  and  makes  possible  crops  not  foreseen  even  by 
those  who  cherished  the  largest  expectations.  These 
preachers  of  an  intensely  individualistic  piety  hoped  to 
link  men  one  by  one  with  the  living  God ;  they  succeeded, 
and  in  addition  they  changed  the  face  of  human  society. 
Our  own  age  is  eager  to  produce  harvests  of  friendship 
in  international  relations,  of  responsible  and  ministering 
comradeship  in  our  industries  and  commerce,  of  earnest- 
ness and  public  consecration  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge 
in  our  schools  and  colleges,  of  loyalty  in  family  relations 


Fertility  87 

restoring  permanency  to  the  shockingly  temporary  and 
casual  ties  which  now  hold  lives  together  in  homes.  We 
discover  that  we  lack  the  soil  upon  which  these  may  be 
grown — the  soil  of  sensitive  and  inclusive  consciences. 
There  is  a  widespread  recognition  that  only  new  supplies 
of  the  fructifying  stream  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  can  fur- 
nish the  moisture  required.  It  will  not  do  to  talk  wist- 
fully of  the  crops,  nor  to  draw  plans  of  the  barns  into 
which  they  may  be  garnered;  our  main  concern  must  be 
with  the  condition  of  the  soil.  And,  if  history  assures 
us  of  anything,  it  is  that  once  the  river  of  vital  religion 
flows  broadly  through  our  time,  not  only  the  harvests  for 
which  we  look,  but  others  even  more  glorious,  now  beyond 
our  power  to  conceive,  will  be  gathered. 

The  symbol  of  a  tree  planted  by  a  stream,  bearing 
fruit  every  month  and  full  of  sap  and  green  in  old  age, 
is  a  fascinating  symbol  of  the  religious  ideal  for  life. 
One  of  the  early  ISTew  England  divines,  when  dying,  was 
seen  to  be  moving  his  lips  to  frame  some  word,  and  his 
son,  leaning  over  to  catch  it,  heard  him  whisper :  "Fruc- 
tuosus."  It  is  the  Christian  aspiration,  here  and  forever. 
Do  you  remember  Victor  Hugo's  description  of  Made- 
moiselle Baptistine,  the  sister  of  Bishop  Bienvenu:  "Na- 
ture had  made  her  only  a  lamb,  and  religion  had  made 
her  an  angel"  ?  Christian  faith  had  taken  the  gentleness 
of  her  womanhood  and  infused  her  with  the  tireless  energy 
of  a  ministering  spirit.  Such  is  the  enhancement  of  the 
gifts  and  graces  of  a  life  accessible  to  religious  inspira- 
tions. There  is  a  fruitfulness  which  surprises  by  its  abun- 
dance and  its  frequency,  "because  the  waters  of  the  river 
issue  out  of  the  sanctuary." 


CHAPTER  YI 


BUOTAXCY 


UPON"  the  waters  of  the  Hudson  tons  of  freight  are 
carried  in  vessels  and  in  long  tows  of  canal- 
barges,  and  thousands  of  passengers  are  trans- 
ported up  and  down  stream  in  steamers  and  across  the 
river  on  ferries.  The  Hudson  is  a  bearer  of  burdens; 
and  that  generations  of  believers  discover  in  the  living 
God. 

The  men  of  the  Bible  do  not  employ  the  simile  of  a 
river  for  the  discovery  of  the  sustaining  power  of  religion, 
for  the  streams  of  Palestine  were  not  big  enough  to  carry 
ships,  and  the  Hebrews  rarely  became  navigators  on  the 
sea ;  but  they  compare  God  to  an  eagle,  swooping  under 
her  young  in  their  first  attempts  at  flight,  and  catching 
and  upholding  them  on  outstretched  wings:  "He  spread 
abroad  His  wings.  He  took  them.  He  bare  them  on  His 
pinions,"  They  represent  Him  as  a  grown-up  Companion 
walking  beside  an  unsteady  little  child:  "When  I  said, 
]\Iy  foot  slippeth.  Thy  loving-kindness,  O  Lord,  held  me 
up" ;  or  as  a  considerate  warrior  assisting  a  fellow-strug- 
gler  on  the  battle-field  to  keep  on  his  feet:  "Thy  right 
hand  hath  holden  me  up" ;  or  as  a  stalwart  Comrade  who 
places  His  arm  around  an  over-weighted  man  and  enables 
him  to  stand  up  under  his  pack:  "Cast  thy  burden  on 
the  Lord,  and  He  will  sustain  thee."  They  use  an  even 
more  touching  figure  of  speech  and  describe  God  as  a 

88 


BUOTAXCY  89 

father  carrying  His  people  as  babes  in  arms :  ^'The  Lord 
thy  God  bare  thee  as  a  man  doth  bear  his  son,"  ''In  His 
love  and  in  His  pity  He  bare  them  and  carried  them  all 
the  days  of  old,"  "I  taught  Ephraim  to  walk:  I  took 
them  on  My  arms."  A  'New  Testament  writer  gives  an 
added  touch  of  tenderness  to  the  picture  by  using  a  phrase 
employed  of  a  widower  who  must  try  to  be  both  father 
and  mother  to  motherless  children:  "For  about  the  time 
of  forty  years  as  a  nursing-father  bare  He  them  in  the 
wilderness."  A  prophet  contrasts  the  heavy  images  of  the 
Babylonian  deities,  carried  on  the  straining  backs  of  their 
devotees  in  a  religious  procession,  with  the  living  God  of 
Israel,  who  carries  His  people  all  their  days :  "Their  idols 
.  .  .  the  things  that  ye  carried  about  are  made  a  load,  a 
burden  to  the  weary.  .  .  .  O  house  of  Jacob,  and  all  the 
remnant  of  the  house  of  Israel,  that  have  been  borne  by 
Me  from  their  birth,  that  have  been  carried  from  the 
womb;  and  even  to  old  age  I  am  He,  and  even  to  hoar 
hairs  will  I  carry  you."  And  possibly  the  phrase  which 
has  come  to  mean  most  to  those  who  prize  the  support  of 
religion  is  the  line  from  an  early  poem :  "Underneath  are 
the  everlasting  arms." 

Among  outsiders  it  is  not  a  common  idea  that  faith 
confers  buoyancy.  To  a  great  many  persons  all  thought 
about  religion  appears  saddening.  You  recall  what  the 
tavern  hostess  said  of  Sir  John  Falstaff:  "A'  cried  out, 
'God,  God,  God !'  three  or  four  times.  Kow  I,  to  comfort 
him,  bid  him  a'  should  not  think  of  God;  I  hoped  there 
was  no  need  to  trouble  himself  with  such  thoughts  yet." 
Religious  beliefs  are  regarded  as  straining  weights  which 
the  devout  must  force  his  intelligence  to  accept  and  carry. 


90  What  Is  There  in  Relig 


ION 


as  one  straps  a  pack  upon  an  unwilling  donkey ;  and  there 
are  not  a  few  who  add  sarcastically  that  it  is  only  donkeys 
who  can  be  turned  into  such  credulous  beasts  of  burden. 
Certain  types  of  unbelievers  represent  themselves  as  eman- 
cipated from  an  earlier  burdening  Christian  creed,  and 
walk  about  the  world  with  an  air  of  superior  liberty.  Re- 
ligious usages  are  considered  oppressive.  Stevenson  be- 
gins a  letter  with  the  sentence :  ''I've  been  to  church,  and 
I  am  not  depressed."  Church-going  interferes  with  week- 
end outings,  and  is  discarded  as  a  hampering  nuisance; 
prayer  is  viewed  as  the  repetition  of  certain  phrases,  often 
childish  in  form — the  luggage  accumulated  in  the  past; 
the  Bible  is  classed  as  heavy  reading,  and  when  the  mind 
is  already  under  considerable  pressure,  other  literature  is 
resorted  to.  Above  all,  religion  is  thought  of  as  afflicting 
its  devotees  with  a  troublesome  conscientiousness.  The 
ordinary  man  of  the  world  has  obligations  upon  him  which 
he  dare  not  disavow,  but  the  unfortunate  believer,  who 
takes  his  Christianity  seriously,  must  load  himself  with 
numberless  additional  responsibilities — responsibilities  as 
wide  as  the  human  race — and.  hold  himself  particularly 
sensitive  to  the  appeals  of  the  most  backward  and  ne'er- 
do-well  at  hand  and  afar  off.  His  conscience  forces  upon 
him  an  admittedly  impossible  standard — likeness  to  Jesus 
Christ;  and  he  must  task  himself  with  every  secret 
thought,  every  personal  ambition,  every  acquiescence  in 
social  conventions,  every  expressed  opinion,  which  dis- 
cords with  the  heart  of  the  Master.  To  them  that  are 
without  it  seems  preposterous  that  any  sane  man  should 
assume  an  obligation  which  he  knows  he  cannot  fulfill, 
and  place  upon  his  conscience  an  ideal  which  no  human 


Buoyancy  91 

being  ever  has  attained.  Their  own  consciences  give  them 
trouble  enough  without  letting  religion  break  their  moral 
backs  by  piling  upon  them  infinitely  more. 

We  must  frankly  grant  that  religious  beliefs  are  often 
presented  in  forms  which  make  them  an  intolerable  load 
upon  intelligence.  It  has  been  a  great  relief  to  many 
when  they  could  set  aside  certain  statements  in  the  Bible 
and  certain  doctrines  preached  and  taught  in  the  churches. 
Christianity  has  carried  along  through  the  centuries  and 
frequently  published  as  of  the  essence  of  its  message 
opinions  which  thinking  folk  find  incredible,  which 
tender-hearted  folk  find  unloving,  and  which  honorable 
folk  find  immoral.  Their  minds  and  hearts  are  eased 
when  they  reach  the  point  where  they  fling  these  views 
away  as  outworn  superstitions,  even  though  at  the  same 
time  they  feel  constrained  to  part  with  all  religious 
faith  whatsoever.  We  must  also  own  that  devout  customs 
are  at  times  made  onerous.  Jesus  clashed  with  the  church- 
leaders  of  His  age  oftenest  over  their  insistence  upon  an 
observance  of  the  sabbath  which  was  to  Him  inhuman, 
and  He  was  denounced  as  a  desecrator  of  God's  hallowed 
day.  People  forget  that  foims  and  habits  which  are  up- 
lifting to  them  may  seem  to  another  generation  weights 
instead  of  wings.  And  we  must  also  admit  that  time  and 
again  the  teaching  of  the  Christian  Church  unduly  loads 
the  consciences  of  her  members  by  placing  an  overem- 
phasis upon  certain  classes  of  duty.  How  many  persons 
reared  in  Christian  homes  have  gained  the  impression  that 
the  chief  evidences  of  loyalty  to  Jesus  are  faitlrfulness  in 
church-attendance,  Bible-reading  and  prayers,  and  scrupu- 
lous abstinence  from  a  number  of  harmless  and  possibly 


92  What  Is  There  iisr  Religioa^  ? 

very  deliglitfiil  amusements !  The  stress  on  relatively  sul> 
ordinate  matters  took  attention  off  more  momentous  hu- 
man obligations ;  and  when  the  inherited  convictions  began 
to  be  questioned  and  thro-wai  aside,  the  mass  of  petty  scru- 
ples which  went  with  them  often  lightened  earnest  people 
and  gave  them  a  sense  of  freedom. 

Men  whose  experiences  have  been  in  the  least  like  those 
recorded  in  the  Bible  passages  quoted  a  moment  ago  would 
protest  that  a  burdensome  religion  was  no  true  communion 
with  the  living  God,  A  Christian's  beliefs  are  not  ideas 
which  he  compels  his  mind  to  accept:  they  are  truths 
which  grip  him.  They  seem  to  approach  him  with  hands 
and  arms,  to  lay  hold  of  his  intelligence,  and  to  lift  him. 
They  are  not  notions  which  he  tries  to  make  himself  be- 
lieve :  they  are  convictions  which  he  finds  he  cannot  dis- 
believe. His  faith  takes  him  off  his  feet,  and  he  is  con- 
scious of  resting  upon  it,  and  of  being  borne  along  by  it. 
Recall  how  religious  convictions  come  to  men.  Coventry 
Patmore  tells  us  that  when  he  was  a  boy  of  eleven,  he 
was  reading  a  book,  when  "it  struck  me  what  an  exceed- 
ingly fine  thing  it  would  be  if  there  really  was  a  God." 
He  had  been  taught  from  childhood  that  there  was;  but 
that  had  remained  a  dormant  assumption  without  interest 
for  him.  Dr.  John  Brown,  the  Edinburgh  physician  and 
man  of  letters,  in  describing  the  process  by  which  his 
father  became  a  contagious  preacher,  says :  "The  truth  of 
the  words  of  God  had  shone  out  upon  him  with  an  immc- 
diateness  and  infinity  of  meaning  and  power,  which  made 
them,  though  the  same  words  he  had  looked  upon  from 
childhood,  other  and  greater  and  deeper  words."  Princi- 
pal Shairp  recounts  of  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen: 


Buoyancy  93 

"He  spoke  of  tlie  awful  silence  of  God,  how  it  some- 
times became  oppressive,  and  the  heart  longed  to  hear  an 
answer  to  its  cry,  some  audible  voice.  And  then  he  added, 
'But  it  has  not  always  been  silence  to  me.  I  have  had  one 
revelation :  it  is  now,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  a  matter  of  mem- 
ory with  me.  It  was  not  a  revelation  of  anything  that 
was  new  to  me.  After  it,  I  did  not  know  anything  which 
I  did  not  know  before.  But  it  was  a  joy  for  which  one 
might  bear  any  sorrow.  I  felt  the  power  of  love — that 
God  is  love,  that  He  loved  me,  that  He  had  spoken  to  me, 
and' — then  after  a  long  pause — 'that  He  had  broken 
silence  to  me.'  " 

Events,  books,  friends,  mysterious  leadings,  our  own 
thoughts,  bring  home  certain  religious  ideas — that  God 
really  is,  that  the  outlook  of  Jesus  upon  life  is  true,  that 
at  the  center  of  the  universe  is  a  Heart,  that  life  linked 
with  God  in  Christ  goes  on  through  death  and  forever; 
and  these  ideas,  up  till  then  mere  commonplaces,  perhaps 
traditional  notions  scoffed  at  as  obsolete,  lay  hold  of  us, 
and  we  find  ourselves  upraised,  and  surveying  all  things 
from  a  higher  elevation,  and  resting  upon  a  new  medium 
which  buoys  our  spirits.  Ezekiel  was  describing  this  ex- 
perience of  being  carried  to  a  loftier  outlook,  when  he 
said:  "The  Spirit  lifted  me  up  .  .  .  and  behold,  I  saw." 
Devout  men  would  insist  that  there  is  something  the 
matter  with  methods  of  devotion  which  weary  those  who 
employ  them.  Take  the  Sunday  question,  as  an  instance. 
Any  sensible  community  may  well  enact  laws,  not  for  re- 
ligious but  for  humanitarian  reasons,  to  safeguard  one  day 
in  seven  from  gain-seeking  labor,  so  far  as  that  is  pos- 
sible. The  individual  believer  can  then  take  the  free 
day  and  use  it  for  the  enrichment  of  his  life  and  the  life 


94  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

of  the  community,  as  he  finds  best  for  him.  When  one 
reads  the  biographies  of  men  who  have  been  outstanding 
forces  for  Christian  righteousness,  one  is  impressed  with 
the  number  of  them  who  felt  deeply  indebted  to  Sundays 
kept  free  from  business  and  devoted  primarily  tc  the  cul- 
ture of  their  own  and  other  men's  spiritual  natures.  Few 
persons  in  the  London  of  a  century  ago  were  more  inces- 
santly busy  than  "William  Wilberforce — member  of  Par- 
liament, sought-after  guest  at  dinners,  active  on  countless 
committees,  with  throngs  of  people  on  all  sorts  of  errands 
crowding  in  to  see  him  daily.  In  the  thick  of  his  struggle 
for  the  abolition  of  the  trade  in  slaves,  he  gave  up  a  Sun- 
day to  presenting  his  cause  in  a  letter  to  the  Emperor  of 
Russia,  stayed  home  from  church,  and  rested  himself,  say- 
ing: "God  desires  mercy  rather  than  sacrifice."  The  fol- 
lowing Sunday  he  enters  in  his  diary: 

"I  will  not  quit  the  peculiar  duties  of  the  day  for  my 
Abolition  labors.  Though  last  Sunday  I  set  about  them 
with  a  real  desire  to  please  God,  yet  it  did  not  answer; 
my  mind  felt  a  weight  on  it,  a  constraint  which  impeded 
the  free  and  unfettered  movements  of  the  imagination  or 
intellect ;  and  I  am  sure  that  this  last  week  I  might  have 
saved  for  that  work  four  times  as  much  time  as  I  assigned 
to  it  on  Sunday.  Therefore  though  knowing  that  God 
prefers  mercy  to  sacrifice,  yet  let  me  in  faith  give  up  this 
day  to  religious  exercises,  to  strengthening  the  impression 
of  invisible  and  divine  things,  by  the  worship  of  God, 
meditation  and  reading." 

Here  was  a  man  to  whom  it  seemed  all-important  that 
weights  be  removed  and  liis  spirit  enfranchised,  and  he 
found  a  devoutly  thoughtful  Sunday  setting  him  at  lib- 
erty. 


Buoyancy  95 

Or  take  the  Bible.  'Not  long  since,  a  young  man  of 
culture,  religiously  reared,  but  who  had  scarcely  opened 
the  covers  of  a  Bible  in  years,  was  convalescing  from  an 
illness  which  had  brought  him  and  his  little  daughter  very 
low,  and  he  startled  a  kinswoman,  who  came  in  to  inquire 
if  there  was  anything  he  would  care  to  have  her  read 
to  him,  by  asking  her  to  read  him  something  from  the 
Bible.  She  asked,  ''What?"  He  replied:  "I  remember 
some  passage  about  armor  and  a  shield ;  I  don't  know  just 
where  it  is."  A  concordance  was  consulted,  the  Sixth 
Chapter  of  Ephesians  found,  and  after  the  reading,  he 
remarked:  "Well,  there's  nothing  quite  like  the  Bible, 
is  there  ?" 

Or  take  prayer.  Psychologists  and  physicians  have 
written  much  recently  of  the  value  of  prayer  as  relaxing 
nervous  tension,  and  quieting  and  invigorating  the  mind, 
as  deep  breath  does  the  body.  At  a  medical  congress  not 
long  ago,  a  well-known  nerve-specialist  made  the  state- 
ment :  "As  an  alienist,  and  one  whose  whole  life  has  been 
concerned  with  the  sufferings  of  the  mind,  I  would  state 
that  of  all  the  hygienic  measures  to  counteract  disturbed 
sleep,  depression  of  spirits,  and  all  the  miserable  sequels 
of  a  distressed  mind,  I  would  undoubtedly  give  the 
first  place  to  the  simple  habit  of  j)rayer."  Coleridge 
justified  his  custom  of  praying  every  night  before  going 
to  sleep  by  giving  the  tested  effect  upon  himself  in  the 
lines : 

A  sense  o'er  all  my  soul  imprest 
That  I  am  weak,  yet  not  unblcst. 
Since  in  me,  round  me,  everywhere 
Eternal  Strength  and  Wisdom  are. 


96  "What  Is  There  ix  Religion  ? 

Is  not  that  akin  to  the  picture  with  which  we  began  of  a 
freighted  vessel  upborne  by  the  encompassing  flow  of  a 
river?  Lowell  voiced  a  similar  sense  of  relaxation  and 
buoyancy,  when  he  characterized  the  essense  of  prayer  as 
"that  perfect  disenthralment  which  is  God."  Here  are 
spirits  aware  of  the  lift  which  is  theirs  through  intercourse 
with  the  Most  High,  ISTone  dare  prescribe  methods  of 
communion  to  another ;  each  must  explore  for  himself  and 
discover  the  mode  of  fellowship  which  upraises  him;  but 
the  witness  of  all  men  and  women  of  prayer  is  that  God 
so  found  is  an  Upholder;  and  they  bid  us:  "Rest  in  the 
Lord." 

As  for  the  burdens  which  religion  places  on  conscience 
when  it  touches  it  with  the  new  sensitiveness  and  compre- 
hensiveness of  Christian  responsibility,  we  cheerfully  ad- 
mit that  vastly  more  is  put  upon  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
followers  of  Jesus  than  on  those  of  any  other  human  be- 
ings; but  that  is  by  no  means  the  whole  story.  A  semi- 
pagan,  like  Goethe,  made  the  discovery  that  "must  is  hard, 
but  it  is  only  when  a  man  must  that  his  real  inner  nature 
is  revealed."  Ordinary  folk  are  aware  that  when  they 
have  to  keep  up  under  some  pressure,  there  is  that  within 
which  appears  to  upbear  them.  Christians  explain  this 
as  the  imlocking  of  spiritual  resources,  the  releasing  of 
a  pent-up  stream,  which  so  soon  as  it  is  allowed  to  flow 
is  augmented  by  the  waters  of  the  vasty  Deep.  They  do 
not  resent  their  enormously  increased  obligations,  because 
their  necessities  bring  with  them  the  sustaining  river.  The 
more  heavy  the  strain,  the  more  buoyancy  they  seem  to 
possess : 


Buoyancy  97 

Ah,  the  key  of  our  life  that  passes  all  wards,  opens  all 

locks, 
Is  not  I  will,  but  I  must,  I  must,  I  must,  and  I  do  it. 


It  is  when  a  Luther  reaches  the  point  where  he  declares : 
"I  cannot  do  otherwise,"  that  he  spontaneously  adds :  "So 
help  me,  God,"  and  is  most  conscious  of  Divine  support. 

In  the  sinking  experiences  of  life,  what  does  one  possess 
to  buoy  him  up  ?  Few  are  unfamiliar  with  the  situation 
where  sorrow  seems  about  to  drown  the  spirit.  "All  Thy 
waves  and  Thy  billows  are  gone  over  me";  "I  am  come 
into  deep  waters,  where  the  floods  overflow  me."  One  sees 
brave  spirits  under  such  circumstances  keeping  themselves 
afloat  by  various  devices.  ISTone  would  withhold  his  re- 
spect from  any  who,  without  religious  faith,  manage  to 
remain  unsubmerged.  But  Christian  faith  would  be  false 
to  its  o^vn  long  experience  through  the  centuries,  if  it  did 
not  testify  to  the  steadfast  underpropping  believers  have 
discovered  in  the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  the  cor- 
respondence of  John  Calvin,  there  is  a  letter  to  his  friend, 
William  Farel,  in  which  Calvin  writes  of  his  wife's  death. 
After  describing  an  affecting  scene  at  the  bedside,  he  says : 
"Then  I  went  to  a  secret  place  to  pray."  After  a  sen- 
tence or  two  the  letter  continues:  "Before  eight  she 
breathed  her  last  so  gently  that  those  who  were  with  her 
could  not  tell  whether  she  were  dead  or  still  alive.  I  at 
present  control  my  grief  so  that  my  duties  are  not  inter- 
fered with.  May  the  Lord  Jesus  strengthen  you  by  His 
Spirit,  and  may  He  support  me  also  under  this  heavy 
affliction,  which  would  certainly  have  overcome  me  had 


98  What  Is  Theke  i:x  Religion? 

not  He,  who  raises  up  the  prostrate,  strengthens  the  weak, 
and  refreshes  the  weary,  stretched  forth  His  hand  from 
heaven  to  me."  There  was  something  beneath  him  to 
lean  his  weight  upon  and  be  splendidly  upborne. 

And  there  are  experiences  far  more  depressing  than 
grief.  Men  find  themselves  in  situations  where  physical 
hardships,  apparently  hopeless  prospects,  surroundings 
that  appal  them,  combine  to  render  their  plight  intolerable. 
There  could  be  scarcely  a  more  hideous  fate  than  to  be 
banished  to  the  mines,  as  these  were  operated  in  the  Roman 
Empire  by  condemned  criminals,  given  a  bare  subsistence, 
locked  in  filthily  unsanitary  and  damp  pens  underground 
at  night,  and  worked  for  long  hours  by  taskmasters  who 
had  no  interest  in  prolonging  their  victims'  lives;  and 
one  of  the  most  thrilling  documents  in  early  Christian  lit- 
erature is  a  letter,  written  by  Cj^rian,  himself  probably 
in  exile,  to  JSTemesianus  and  his  comrades  in  martyrdom 
in  the  mines : 


"The  body  is  not  cherished  in  the  mines  with  couch  and 
cushions,  but  it  is  cherished  with  the  refreshment  and 
solace  of  Christ.  The  frame  wearied  with  labors  lies 
prostrate  on  the  ground,  but  it  is  no  punishment  to  lie 
down  with  Christ.  There  the  bread  is  scarce;  but  a  man 
lives  not  by  bread  alone,  but  by  the  word  of  God.  Shiver- 
ing, you  want  clothing ;  but  he  who  puts  on  Christ  is  both 
abundantly  clad  and  adorned.  The  hair  of  your  half- 
shorn  head  seems  repulsive;  but  since  Christ  is  the  head 
of  the  man,  anything  whatever  must  needs  become  the 
head  which  is  illustrious  on  account  of  Christ's  name.  .  .  . 
A  manifold  portion  of  the  people,  following  your  example, 
have  confessed  alike  with  you,  and  alike  have  been 
crowned.     Even  in  boys  a  courage  greater  than  their  age 


Buoyancy  99 

has  surpassed  their  years  in  the  praise  of  their  confession, 
so  that  every  sex  and  every  age  should  adorn  the  blessed 
flock  of  your  witnessing.  What  must  be  the  vigor,  beloved 
brethren,  of  your  victorious  conscience,  that  every  one  of 
you  walk  in  the  mines  with  a  body  captive  indeed,  but  with 
a  heart  reigning,  that  you  know  Christ  is  present  with  you, 
rejoicing  in  the  endurance  of  His  servants,  who  are  as- 
cending by  His  footsteps  and  in  His  paths  to  the  eternal 
kingdoms !" 

Beside  this  page  from  the  Third  Century,  we  may  place 
another  from  the  Seventeenth,  on  which  Governor  Brad- 
ford, in  his  History  of  Plymouth  Plantation,  describes  the 
condition  of  the  sick  and  imperiled  band  of  exiles  for  con- 
science' sake,  after  they  had  landed  and  were  in  the  midst 
of  a  ISTew  England  December : 

"They  that  know  the  winters  of  that  country  know  them 
to  be  sharp  and  violent,  and  subject  to  cruel  and  fierce 
storms,  dangerous  to  travel  to  known  places,  much  more 
to  search  an  unknown  coast.  Besides  what  could  they  see 
but  a  hideous  and  desolate  wilderness,  full  of  wild  beasts 
and  wild  men?  and  what  multitudes  there  might  be  of 
them  they  knew  not.  l^either  could  they,  as  it  were,  go  up 
to  the  top  of  Pisgah,  to  view  from  this  wilderness  a  more 
goodly  country  to  feed  their  hopes ;  for  which  way  soever 
they  turned  their  eyes  (save  upward  to  the  heavens)  they 
could  have  little  solace  or  content  in  respect  of  any  out- 
ward objects.  For  summer  being  done,  all  things  stand 
upon  them  with  a  weather-beaten  face;  and  the  whole 
country,  full  of  woods  and  thickets,  represented  a  wild 
and  savage  hue.  If  they  looked  behind  them,  there  was 
the  mighty  ocean  which  they  had  passed,  and  was  now  as 
a  main  bar  or  gulf  to  separate  them  from  all  the  civil 
parts  of  the  world.  If  it  be  said  they  had  a  ship  to  suc- 
cor them,  it  is  true;  but  what  heard  they  daily  from  the 


100  What  Is  Theee  IjST  Keligion? 

master  and  company  ?  .  .  .  That  victuals  consumed  apace. 
Yea,  it  was  muttered  by  some  that  if  they  got  not  a  place 
in  time,  they  would  turn  them  and  their  goods  ashore  and 
leave  them.  Let  it  also  be  considered  what  weak  hopes  of 
supply  and  succor  they  left  behind  them,  that  might  bear 
up  their  minds  in  this  sad  condition  and  trials  they  were 
under;  and  they  could  not  but  be  very  small.  What  could 
now  sustain  them  but  the  Spirit  of  God  and  His  grace?" 

The  Pilgrims  rested  upon  that,  and  kept  up  and  kept  on. 
It  is  the  fashion  in  certain  circles  to  jeer  at  religion  as 
a  surviving  childish  weakness  in  modern  man.  We  begin 
life  helpless  and  are  carried  in  parental  arms ;  in  maturity 
when  these  are  no  longer  about  us,  our  orphaned  minds 
fancy  an  unseen  Father  still  upbearing  us.  God  is  the 
projection  upon  the  skies  of  an  unsatisfied  craving  in  our 
natures,  and  He  is  nothing  more.  It  is  a  tempting  ex- 
planation, because  there  come  times  when  believers  do  not 
feel  anything  stable  in  the  invisible  to  buoy  them.  Au- 
gustine confesses  that  at  one  period  in  his  life:  "Thou 
wert  not  any  solid  or  substantial  thing  unto  me,  when  in 
those  days  I  thought  upon  Thee.  If  I  offered  to  discharge 
my  burden,  to  give  it  some  easement,  it  fell  as  it  were 
through  the  empty  air,  and  came  tumbling  again  upon 
me."  And  in  His  supreme  need,  Jesus  Himself  cried: 
"Why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me  ?"  But  such  experiences  of 
non-support  are  not  final  with  believers.  Augustine  was 
holding  on  to  his  self-confidence  and  his  sins,  "the  bag- 
gage of  the  world,"  as  he  calls  them.  When  he  put  them 
away  and  committed  himself  utterly  to  the  will  of  Christ, 
he  speaks  of  resting  in  God.  Through  the  darkness,  Jesus' 
trust  still  prayed:  "My  God,"  and  the  glorious  issue  of 


Buoyancy  101 

His  career  is  witness  tbat  the  hands  into  which  He  com- 
mended His  spirit  upheld  and  still  carry  Him  triumph- 
antly through  the  ages.  There  must  be  as  complete  a  ven- 
ture of  faith  in  God  as  that  of  a  ship  launched  upon  a 
stream,  and  with  nothing  beneath  it  but  the  water,  before 
buoyancy  is  realized. 

N'or  is  it  true  that  religion  with  its  message  of  relaxa- 
tion and  dependence  keeps  men  childish.  Surely  the  men 
and  women  we  have  instanced  are  not  puerile.  The  buoy- 
ancy of  the  river  does  not  relieve  tugs  and  steamers  from 
the  necessity  of  using  their  own  power,  if  they  would 
transport  cargoes  and  passengers.  Its  upbearing  renders 
possible  the  full  output  of  their  powers.  The  sense  of  a 
sustaining  God  enables  a  Calvin  in  his  lonely  sorrow  not  to 
let  his  work  be  interfered  with,  fortifies  a  mixed  company 
of  captive  Christians  to  endure  with  contagious  courage 
the  exhausting  and  sickening  toil  in  the  mines,  and  puts 
heart  and  hope  into  the  pilgrims  in  the  face  of  overwhelm- 
ing discouragements  to  go  forward  with  their  enterprise. 
The  world's  commerce  must  be  carried  in  vessels  that  can 
stay  afloat.  It  is  men  and  women  buoyed  up  with  confi- 
dence, saved  from  sinkings  of  heart  and  depression  of 
spirits,  responsive  to  the  tiller  of  conscience  and  capable 
of  employing  all  the  energy  they  possess,  who  vigorously 
carry  their  own  loads  and  the  burdens  of  others,  and 
bring  both  themselves  and  their  brethren  to  the  haven 
where  they  would  be. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

SEEENITT   AXD   ADVENTUEE 

THE  Hudson  River  is  part  of  !N"ew  York  harbor,  or 
perhaps  we  should  say  that  ISTew  York  Bay  is  part 
of  the  Hudson  River,  for  geologists  tell  us  that  at 
one  time  the  Atlantic  Coast  Plain  stretched  much  farther 
out  towards  the  East,  and  the  ancient  bed  of  the  Hudson 
can  still  be  traced  beneath  the  floor  of  the  ocean  making 
its  way  to  a  mouth  a  hundred  miles  beyond  its  present 
outlet.  The  river  front  on  Manhattan  Island  and  the 
Jersey  shore  is  to-day  occupied  by  wharves  where  vessels 
dock,  and  it  is  not  unusual  to  see  a  large  fleet  anchored 
below  the  Palisades  in  mid-stream.  The  river  is  a  haven 
for  ships.  A  ISTew  Yorker,  enjoying  a  calm  day  on  a 
trans- Atlantic  voyage,  remarks :  "It's  as  quiet  as  the  Hud- 
son River." 

The  steady,  even  flow  of  a  river  as  contrasted  with 
the  choppy  waves  of  the  sea  is  used  in  the  Bible  as  a  sym- 
bol for  the  peace  which  comes  in  obedience  to  God:  "Oh 
that  thou  hadst  hearkened  to  My  commandments!  then 
had  thy  peace  been  as  a  river" ;  "Behold  I  will  extend 
peace  to  her  like  a  river";  "Great  (that  is  ^abundant,' 
^flowing')  peace  have  they  that  love  Thy  law."  An  early 
prophet  compares  the  cities  on  the  Tigris,  the  Euphrates 
or  the  Nile,  where  the  river  formed  a  powerful  military 
protection  in  time  of  siege,  with  riverless  Jerusalem  which 

102 


Serenity  and  Adventure  103 

Jehovah  encompassed  with  His  defence :  "There  the  Lord 
will  be  with  us  in  majesty,  in  place  of  broad  rivers  and 
streams ;  wherein  shall  go  no  galley  with  oars,  neither  shall 
gallant  ship  pass  thereby."  Christian  literature  is  full 
of  expressions  of  the  shelter  men  find  in  God.  One  may 
put  beside  the  prophecy  just  quoted  the  words  of  Paul: 
"The  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  understanding,  shall 
guard  your  hearts  and  your  thoughts  in  Christ  Jesus." 
When  men  reach  trust  in  God,  they  feel  themselves  like 
warriors  safely  lodged  within  a  moated  citadel,  or  like 
billow-tossed  ships  which  have  been  faring  on  the  high 
seas  and  are  now  in  a  placid  stream.  Listen  to  Dante, 
voyaging  on  the  windy  ocean  of  Fourteenth  Century  Ital- 
ian politics,  singing:  "In  His  will  is  our  peace";  to 
Luther,  with  a  nature  that  swirled  in  storms  of  intense 
feeling,  writing  to  a  brother-monk  at  Erfurt:  "I  know 
from  my  own  experience,  as  well  as  from  that  of  all 
troubled  souls,  that  it  is  solely  our  own  self-conceit  which 
is  at  the  root  of  all  our  disquietude,"  and  pointing  him 
for  peace  to  "union  with  Christ's  loving  heart  and  divine 
will" ;  and  to  Charles  Wesley,  whose  lines 

While  the  nearer  waters  roll, 
While  the  tempest  still  is  high. 
Hide  me,  O  my  Saviour  hide. 
Till  the  storm  of  life  is  past, 

have  so  accurately  voiced  the  longing  and  the  answer  of 
thousands  of  English-speaking  Christians,  that  no  hymn  in 
our  language  is  better  known  or  more  widely  used.  Find- 
ing through  Christ  a  quiet  anchorage  as  in  a  river  while 


104  What  Is  Theke  in  Religion  ? 

life's  vast  ocean  is  storm-swept,  is  an  experience  which 
believei''s  have  known  from  the  earliest  days  of  our  faith, 
and  expressed  in  words  placed  by  one  evangelist  on  the 
lips  of  Jesus  Himself:  "These  things  have  I  spoken  unto 
you  that  in  Me  ye  may  have  peace.  In  the  world  ye  have 
tribulation."  "In  the  world" — there  is  the  ship  at  sea; 
"in  Me" — there  is  the  ship  in  the  protected  stream. 

Those  believers  who  lack  serenity  of  spirit  are  failing 
to  get  out  of  their  religion  what  is  undoubtedly  there. 
They  have  problems,  public  and  personal,  which  harass 
their  minds,  obligations  which  keep  them  anxious  lest 
they  prove  wanting,  feelings  and  passions  to  be  held  in 
check  and  turned  into  an  outflow  of  love,  "fightings  and 
fears,  within,  without"  to  be  controlled,  work  to  be  got 
through  without  failing  those  who  count  on  them,  men, 
women  and  little  children  to  be  lived  with,  worked  with, 
played  with,  worshiped  with,  harmoniously.  "Thou  wilt 
keep  him  in  perfect  peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  Thee." 
"Whose  mind  is  stayed" — serenity  is  lost  by  letting  God 
drop  out  of  mind.  When  perturbed,  successful  believers 
have  employed  the  grace  of  recollection,  reminding  them- 
selves that  God  is,  and  what  He  is. 

I  smiled  to  thinh  God's  greatness  flowed  around  our  in- 
completeness,— 
Round  our  restlessness  His  rest. 

In  a  tense  moment  in  the  Reformation  movement  Mar- 
tin Luther  received  a  frightened  and  despondent  letter 
from  his  friend,  Spalatin,  to  which  he  replied :  "Great 
heavens,  Spalatin,  how  excited  you  are !    If  this  thing  be 


Seeenity  and  Adventure  106 

of  God,  it  will  come  to  pass  contrary  to,  in  spite  of,  over 
or  under,  your  or  my  way  of  bringing  it  about." 

The  Modernist,  Father  Tyrrell,  tells  a  correspondent: 
"God  'takes  up  the  islands  as  a  very  little  thing, 
and  measures  out  the  ocean  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand,' 
and  I  do  think  we  ought  to  try  hard  to  look  at  these 
matters  with  His  eyes — to  take  up  the  whole  wriggling 
mass  of  squabbling  humanity  in  our  hand  as  a  very 
little  thing — a  matter  for  quiet  and  not  unkindly  curiosity 
more  than  for  volcanic,  self-hurting,  useless  indignation." 
The  recollection  of  God  enables  us  to  do  our  work  as  "toil 
unsevered  from  tranquillity" ;  it  cushions  our  nerves  with 
bits  of  His  own  heart  in  our  contacts  with  frequently 
angular  and  irritating  fellow-humans;  it  restores  and 
maintains  poise  as  we  try  to  think  through  bewildering 
questions;  it  renders  the  earnestness  of  men  who  must 
care  as  intensely  as  Jesus  how  it  goes  with  the  whole 
world  and  with  every  least  mortal  in  it  "an  impassioned 
quietude."  God  is  harbor  and  anchorage;  and  a  faith 
which  does  not  give  the  peace  of  mind  of  the  navigator 
who  has  safely  brought  in  his  vessel  is  not  the  faith  which 
generations  of  Christians  have  found  in  Christ. 

Some  of  the  finest  results  of  religion  may  seem  beyond 
the  reach  of  many  believers,  but  peace  appears  to  be  the 
invariable  effect  of  cordial  self-commitment  to  God.  Pro- 
fessor Robertson  Smith,  the  eminent  Semitic  scholar  and 
editor  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  once  threw  aside 
his  usual  reticence  and  wrote  to  a  younger  brother  dying 
of  tuberculosis  a  tender  letter,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
said: 


106  What  Is  There  ix  Religion? 

"You  have  had  a  sore  share  of  trials,  aud  jet  perhaps 
one  easier  to  bear  than  a  long  life  of  prosperity  and  worldly 
cares  which  make  it  very  hard  to  keep  near  to  God.  At 
all  events  we  know  that  He  who  orders  all  things  wisely 
has  dealt  with  you  and  with  us  all  according  to  His  will, 
which  is  the  same  as  His  purpose  of  love;  and  He  will 
not  forsake  you,  even  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
if  you  lean  on  Him.  Do  not  look  inwards  and  vex  your- 
self with  self-questionings  about  faith  and  assurance  and 
such  like  things.  God  gives  a  joyous  assurance  to  some 
of  His  servants,  but  He  gives  peace  to  all  who  simply 
throw  themselves  on  Him,  humbly  accepting  His  will, 
looking  to  Him  as  children  to  a  father,  and  beseeching 
Him  to  be  with  them  and  carry  all  their  burdens." 

The  Britain  of  1887,  when  that  letter  was  penned,  con- 
tained few  more  acute  or  original  minds,  but  in  these 
simple  sentences,  with  shadows  about  his  loved  ones  and 
himself,  this  Christian  scholar  stated  the  religious  com- 
monplace that  whole-hearted  trust  brings  quietness. 

But  the  Hudson  River  flows  out  into  the  Atlantic. 
Stand  near  its  source  on  the  slope  of  Mt.  Marcy  and  one 
sees  moisture  in  the  moss  forming  a  tiny  trickle  and  be- 
ginning to  feel  its  way  down  to  the  distant  ocean :  the  river 
is  born  a  venturer.  Geographers  call  attention  to  the 
nearly  straight  course  of  the  Hudson  from  Fort  Edward  to 
the  sea,  despite  the  fact  that  at  some  points,  particularly 
in  the  Highlands,  the  river  pursues  a  way  out  of  harmony 
with  the  structure  of  the  country  through  which  it  passes. 
It  flows  at  a  considerable  angle  across  the  Taconic  folds  of 
rock  above  the  Highlands,  and  when  it  reaches  these  moun- 
tains it  passes  through  a  deep  gorge  which  it  has  cut 
athwart  the  hard  granites  and  other  stone  of  which  this 


Serenity  and  Adventure  107 

section  is  formed.  What  is  more  enterprising  than  water, 
ceaselessly  finding  or  forcing  a  path  through  soil  and  rock, 
around  obstacles,  gradually  wearing  a  channel,  until  it 
reaches  the  sea?  So  rivers  have  always  lured  those  who 
dwelt  near  them  to  attempt  the  great  deep.  The  only 
stream  in  Palestine,  the  Jordan,  empties  into  the  Dead 
Sea,  and  one  need  not  look  in  the  Bible  for  metaphors 
which  link  a  river  with  daring.  The  Hebrews,  just  be- 
cause no  streams  or  arms  of  the  sea  broke  their  coastline, 
were  never  tempted  out  on  the  Mediterranean,  and  unlike 
Egyptians  and  Greeks  and  Phoenicians  they  never  became 
seafarers.  But  their  religion  is  represented  by  a  long  ros- 
ter of  venturesome  spirits — Abraham  setting  out  from  Ur 
of  the  Chaldees  on  a  lonely  quest  for  a  better  country; 
Moses  leading  an  Exodus  of  slaves-  out  of  Egypt  to  found  a 
holy  nation;  Elijah  facing  single-handed  king  and  queen, 
priests  and  people,  who  worshiped  inferior  gods,  and  re- 
calling them  to  the  just  and  jealous  Jehovah;  John  the 
Baptist  aflame  for  the  kingdom  of  God  and  driving  the 
people  to  its  more  exacting  conscience;  Jesus  with  no 
place  to  lay  His  head  in  the  convictions  and  ideals  of  those 
about  Him,  and  bidding  them  follow  Him  as  the  Way  to 
life;  Paul  taking  the  faith  of  Jesus  out  of  its  confining 
limits  as  the  religion  of  a  handful  of  Jews  and  carrying 
it,  an  adapted  and  appealing  message,  throughout  the 
Roman  world — such  are  they  in  whose  experiences  flows 
the  stream  of  the  outgoing  and  outbearing  Spirit  of  God. 
The  very  essence  of  their  conception  of  Deity  had  in  it 
this  indefinite  advance  into  an  unbounded  future.  Our 
version  makes  God  disclose  Himself  to  Moses  under 
the  mysterious  title:  "I  am  that  I  am,"  which  suggests 


108  What  Is  There  tn  Religion? 

a  static  Deity.  But  scholars  seem  agreed  that  the  better 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  verbs  reads  them  as  futures: 
"I  will  be  that  I  will  be."  Moses  and  his  contemporaries 
are  represented  as  led  forth  by  One  who  will  disclose  Him- 
self to  them  more  and  more  with  each  experience  which 
they  share  with  Him.  He  cannot  tell  them  what  He  is ; 
He  can  only  bid  them  trust  themselves  to  Him,  and  dis- 
cover what  He  will  be.  The  language  suggests  a  mutual 
venture  upon  which  God  and  His  people  stake  themselves, 
and  in  which  they  find  out  what  they  can  mean  to  each 
other. 

The  God  of  Christian  faith  has  not  often  been  pictured 
as  a  Venturer.  His  sufficiency  in  wisdom  and  power  has 
been  portrayed  by  a  Figure  in  majestic  repose.  He 
speaks,  and  it  is  done;  He  thinks,  and  the  entire  course 
of  events  from  start  to  finish  is  thought  out.  Theologians 
have  stressed  His  foreknowledge.  He  sees  the  end  from 
the  beginning  and  all  the  intervening  steps ;  He  prearranges 
whatsoever  comes  to  pass ;  He  causes  all  things  to  work 
together  in  unerring  accord  to  accomplish  His  purpose. 

That  is  not  the  conception  of  the  Creator  of  our  world 
to  which  present  scientific  thinking  points.  He  seems 
One  who  makes  many  trial-starts:  He  has  undertaken 
numerous  species  of  plants  and  creatures  which  have  not 
survived  changing  conditions  on  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
and  remain  only  in  fossils.  He  seems  one  who  equips 
organisms  with  elastic  powers  of  adaptation,  and  lets 
them  make  themselves,  and  go  on  perfecting  themselves : 
^a  Mesozoic  reptile  has  capacities  for  developing  its 
scales  into  feathers  or  fur,  and  of  becoming  the  progenitor 


Serektity  and  Adventure  109 

of  birds  or  of  beasts,  or  its  kind  disappears  from  among 
the  living;  a  prehistoric  man  has  capacities  for  becoming 
an  artist,  a  scientist,  a  man  of  conscience  and  faith,  and 
he  makes  use  of  these  capacities  or  he  remains  akin  to 
the  brutes  and  is  exterminated  by  the  advancing  types  of 
the  human  race;  historic  man  for  ages  and  to-day  has 
capacities  of  growing  a  social  conscience,  commensurate 
with  the  material  forces  at  his  command,  and  of  develop- 
ing a  finer  spiritual  nature  by  fellowship  with  the  Invis- 
ible, or  he  will  be  wiped  out  by  the  weapons  and  gases 
which  his  own  inventiveness  has  furnished  him,  and  his 
spirit  will  be  crushed  out  of  him  under  the  pressure  of 
the  things  with  which  he  surrounds  and  overlays  it.  The 
only  idea  of  God  which  can  be  fitted  into  our  present  out- 
look upon  the  universe  is  that  of  One  who  is  all  the  time 
risking  ventures. 

That  conception  of  Him,  while  it  may  not  agree  with 
some  proof-texts  on  which  theologians  of  the  past  have 
based  their  doctrine,  is  certainly  more  in  accord  with  the 
general  thought  of  God  in  the  Bible  than  was  theirs. 
Their  conception  was  rather  Greek  than  Hebrew, 
^schylus  writes:  "Secure  it  falls,  not  prostrate  on  its 
back,  whate'er  is  decreed  to  fulfillment  by  the  nod  of  Zeus. 
.  .  .  God  knows  not  toil:  geated  above  upon  His  holy 
throne  He  worketh  His  will  from  thence  by  ways  un- 
known." But  the  prophets  of  Israel  do  not  hesitate  to 
picture  Jehovah  as  taken  by  surprise ;  they  hear  Him  say- 
ing of  some  iniquity  of  His  people :  "l^Teither  came  it  into 
My  mind."  They  represent  Him  as  winning  a  reputation, 
getting  to  Himself  "a  name."    And  Jesus  contended  for  a 


110  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

view  of  Him  as  a  living  Contemporary — a  Father  who 
"worketh  even  until  now."  One  who  was  baffled  and  had 
to  try  again:  "How  often  wonld  I  have  gathered  Thy 
children  together,  and  ye  would  not" ;  One  who  took  risks 
and  was  sometimes  disappointed :  "He  had  yet  One,  a  be- 
loved Son:  He  sent  Him  last  unto  them,  saying:  They 
will  reverence  My  Son.  But  those  husbandmen  said,  Let 
us  kill  Him." 

To  be  sure  the  Deity  suggested  by  our  study  of  the 
universe  is  One  who  cannot  be  permanently  thwarted. 
How  amazingly  resourceful  nature  is !  How  promptly 
the  unfit  are  replaced  by  the  more  fit !  How  life  seems  to 
crowd  upon  the  stage,  eagerly  awaiting  a  chance!  What 
powers  of  repair  nature  posseses,  so  that  one  season's 
damages  the  next  begins  to  make  good!  What  an  unde- 
feated impression  she  leaves  upon  us  with  her  reserves 
constantly  arriving  upon  the  scene!  When  one  studies 
any  detail  of  the  complex  web  of  existence  there  is  a  fine- 
ness of  adjustment  which  it  is  hard  to  fancy  as  unplanned. 
Mr.  Huxley,  describing  ovarian  evolution  as  seen  through 
a  microscope,  comments:  "After  watching  the  process 
hour  by  hour  one  is  almost  involuntarily  pursued  by  the 
notion  that  some  more  subtle  aid  to  the  vision  than  the 
microscope  would  show  the  hidden  artist,  with  his  plan 
before  him,  striving  with  skillful  manipulation  to  perfect 
his  work."  Charles  Darwin,  towards  the  close  of  his  life, 
said  in  a  letter:  "If  we  consider  the  whole  universe,  the 
mind  refuses  to  look  at  it  as  the  outcome  of  chance — 
that  is,  without  design  or  purpose."  And  the  God  of 
Christian  faith  is  both  One  who  plans  and  is  adequate  for 
any  emergency  which  may  arise  in  the  execution  of  His 


Serenity  and  Adventuee  111 

design.  He  uses  disasters  as  disciplines  for  triumphs; 
He  discards  a  nation  which  is  blind  in  the  day  of  her 
visitation,  and  carries  out  His  purpose  through  a  cosmo- 
politan group  of  every  kindred  and  tongue;  He  makes 
the  cross,  reared  by  the  sins  of  men,  the  means  of  His 
most  far-reaching  victory.  But  the  point  is  that  He  for- 
ever confronts  emergencies.  Walt  Whitman  made  the 
acute  observation :  "It  is  provided  in  the  essence  of  things 
that  from  any  fruition  of  success,  no  matter  what,  shall 
come  forth  something  to  make  a  greater  struggle  neces- 
sary." That  appears  to  be  as  true  for  God  as  for  His 
children.  He  must  continually  hazard  Himself  in  Self- 
giving  love,  pouring  forth  His  fullness  in  life  in  His 
creatures,  and  in  thought  and  conscience  and  sacrifice 
in  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men. 

Fellowship  with  such  a  God  must  be  an  adventure. 
The  Son  who  fully  shared  His  mind  and  heart  impressed 
His  first  followers,  and  impresses  every  succeeding  gen- 
eration of  those  who  try  to  accord  with  His  Spirit,  as  an 
innovator.  I^ew  Testament  writers  speak  of  Him  as  "the 
Pioneer  of  life,"  "the  Explorer  of  faith."  Was  there 
ever  adventure  comparable  to  Calvary?  Jesus  staked 
everything  upon  the  hazard  of  His  sacrificial  death.  He 
deliberately  courted  it,  when  He  went  up  from  Galilee  to 
the  capital.  Throughout  His  career  He  so  far  outdis- 
tanced others  in  His  trust,  His  hope,  His  love,  that  twenty 
centuries  of  religious  and  moral  advance  have  not  brought 
the  leaders  of  mankind  abreast  of  Him.  One  of  His  in- 
terpreters in  the  Second  Century  wrote:  "Our  limit  is 
the  cross  of  Christ,"  and  each  successive  century  which 
sets  the  spirit  of  that  cross  as  its  goal  finds  itself  em- 


112  "What  Is  Theke  i:^  Religion? 

barked  on  a  quest  which  carries  its  pursuers  out  beyond 
all  known  boundaries.  The  earlv  Hebrew  designation  for 
God  appears  to  fit  the  Deity  who  speaks  to  us  through  the 
cosmic  processes  as  we  understand  them  and  through  our 
ethical  ideals :  "I  will  be  that  I  will  be." 

In  its  essence  faith,  like  water,  is  a  venturer.  How 
mysterious  is  the  outreach  of  a  man's  trust  beyond  the 
terra  firma  of  things  tangible  and  visible  to  rest  on  and 
be  borne  forth  by  the  unseen  God !  What  an  exploration 
when  the  mind  relates  the  happenings  of  life's  common 
day  with  the  will  of  the  Most  Highest !  What  a  far  coun- 
try the  heart  visits  when  in  loving  memory  it  follows  the 
dear  dead  off  into  the  presence  of  a  most  near  Father, 
Lord  of  earth  and  heaven !  "It  is  an  enterprise  of  noble 
daring,"  wrote  Clement  of  Alexandria,  "to  take  our  way 
to  God."  And  the  modern  Scandinavian  thinker,  Kierke- 
gaard, calls  the  Christian  faith  a  desperate  sortie.  We 
have  to  fare  out  beyond  the  shore-line  of  common-sense, 
of  the  accepted  maxims  of  prudence,  of  the  standards 
which  men  of  this  world  commend  as  the  frontiers  of 
wisdom,  and  cast  ourselves  upon  One  whose  appeal  is  to 
our  sense  of  what-ought-to-be,  but  never  yet  has  been. 
"Faith  is  assurance  of  things  hoped  for,  a  conviction  of 
things  not  seen."  It  is  the  deep  in  man,  a  deep  which 
may  appear  as  shallow  and  tiny  as  the  drop  of  moisture 
glistening  in  the  moss  on  the  mountain-side,  moving  to- 
wards the  great  deep  in  the  universe — the  heart  and  con- 
science of  God.  In  faith  the  affections  and  thoughts 
gather  themselves,  like  the  trickles  on  the  hill-slope, 
and  make  their  venturesome  start  for  the  mighty 
ocean. 


Serenity  ajtd  Adventuee  113 

Believers  stress  the  deliverance  from  conventionality 
which  religion  confers.  They  feel  themselves  swept  out 
hy  the  current  of  the  stream  to  what  William  Vaughan 
Moody  calls  "the  spirit  reaches  of  the  strenuous  vast," 
as  the  Hudson  bears  a  ship  out  into  the  Atlantic.  Men 
who  come  close  to  God  know  their  minds  unfolding  for 
fresh  views  and  their  natures  opening  for  new  departures. 
It  is  so  all  down  the  Christian  ages.  The  seer  on  Patmos 
hears  Him  who  sitteth  upon  the  throne  declaring:  "Be- 
hold, I  make  all  things  new" ;  and  he  is  ready  for  a  very 
different  city  to  come  down  out  of  heaven  and  take  the 
place  of  the  Ephesus  and  the  Eome  with  which  he  is  all 
too  familiar.  Tertullian,  the  Carthaginian  lawyer,  a  cen- 
tury later,  writes:  "Christ,  our  Master,  calls  Himself 
Truth,  not  Convention" ;  and  insists  in  His  name  upon 
far  finer  standards  of  purity  than  the  respectable  of  his 
day  deemed  necessary.  John  Hus  pens  a  letter  from  his 
prison  at  Constance,  in  which  he  says :  "We  ought  not  to 
follow  custom,  but  Christ's  example  and  truth";  and 
he  becomes  the  harbinger  of  a  reformation  in  the  life 
and  thinking  of  Christendom.  In  no  generation,  past 
or  present,  will  you  discover  men  alive  unto  God  who 
do  not  break  with  the  current  opinions  and  usages  and 
move  forward  towards  a  vaster  ideal.  In  the  inscription 
upon  the  cenotaph,  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  of  John  How- 
ard, whose  evangelical  faith  was  his  incentive  and  support 
in  his  fearless  investigation  of  prisons  and  hospitals  in 
Britain  and  on  the  Continent  of  Europe,  is  the  sentence: 
"He  followed  an  open  but  unfrequented  pathway  to  im- 
mortality." Pasteur,  whose  biography  reveals  a  religious 
devotion,  when  people  remonstrated  with  him  upon  the 


114  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

risks  of  infection  whicli  lie  took  in  pursuing  his  researches, 
replied:  "What  does  it  matter?  Life  in  the  midst  of 
dangers  is  the  life,  the  real  life,  the  life  of  sacrifice,  of 
example,  of  fruitfulness."  In  fellowship  with  God  men 
are  borne  afar  from  the  boundaries  of  the  usual.  The  seer 
on  Patmos  voiced  the  experience  of  many  fellow-believers 
in  the  phrase:  "I  was  carried  away  in  the  Spirit." 

Genuine  touch  with  the  living  God  always  comes  as 
an  awakening  which  makes  its  possessors  feel  themselves 
loosed  and  launched  on  a  larger  enterprise.  A  minor 
singer  has  put  this  experience  in  autobiographic  verse : 

I  was  quick  in  the  flesh,  was  warm,  and  the  live  heart 
shook  my  breast ; 
In  the  market  I  bought  and  sold,  in  the  temple  I  bowed 
my  head. 
I  had  swathed  me  in  shows  and  forms,  and  was  honored 
above  the  rest. 
For  the  sake  of  the  life  I  lived ;  nor  did  any  esteem  me 
dead. 

But  at  last,  when  the  hour  was  ripe — was  it  sudden-re- 
membered word? 
Was  it  sight  of  a  bird  that  mounted,  or  sound  of  a 
strain  that  stole  ? — 
I  was  'ware  of  a  spell  that  snapped,  of  an  inward  strength 
that  stirred, 
Of  a  Presence  that  filled  that  place;  and  it  shone,  and 
I  knew  my  soul. 

And  the  dream  I  had  called  my  life  was  a  garment  about 
my  feet, 
Por  the  web  of  the  years  was  rent  with  the  throe  of  a 
yearning  strong, 


Serenity  and  Adventtjee  115 

With  a  sweep  as  of  winds  in  heaven,  with  a  rush  as  of 
flames  that  meet, 
The  Flesh  and  the  Spirit  clasped;  and  I  cried,  ''Was 
I  dead  so  long  ?" 

I  had  glimpse  of  the  Secret,  flashed  through  the  symbols 
obscure  and  mean, 
And  I  felt  as  a  fire  what  erst  I  repeated  with  lips  of 
clay; 
And  I  knew  for  the  things  eternal  the  things  eye  hath  not 
seen; 
Yea,  the  heavens  and  the  earth  shall  pass,  but  they 
never  shall  pass  away. 

Such  spirits  throw  off  all  that  holds  them  fast,  as  the 
ropes  which  secure  a  ship  are  pulled  aboard  or  flung  to 
the  wharf  as  she  sets  out  on  her  voyage.  The  cords  of 
the  proprieties,  the  many-stranded  ropes  of  custom,  the 
hawsers  of  tradition,  the  wire-cables  of  habit,  no  longer 
tie  up  the  man  who  has  been  caught  by  the  flood  of  a  re- 
ligious experience.  William  James  in  his  study  of  saint- 
liness  concludes:  "That  whole  raft  of  cowardly  obstruc- 
tions, which  in  tame  persons  and  dull  moods  are  sovereig-n 
impediments  to  action,  sinks  away  at  once.  Our  conven- 
tionality, our  shyness,  laziness  and  stinginess,  our  de- 
mands for  precedent  and  permission,  for  guarantee  and 
surety,  our  small  suspicions,  timidities,  despairs,  where 
are  they  now  ?  Severed  like  cobwebs,  broken  like  bubbles 
in  the  sun.  The  flood  we  are  borne  on  rolls  them  so  lightly 
under  that  their  very  contact  is  unfelt."  There  is  the 
river  of  faith  sweeping  a  man  out  in  fellowship  with  the 
creative  God  towards  His  own  boundless  life.  His  far- 
reaching  purposes.  His  infinite  ideals,  like  a  vast  ocean, 


116  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

are  before  us  luring  us  away  to  the  divine  adventure. 
IN'ecessitj  is  said  to  be  the  mother  of  invention;  religion 
is  the  mother  of  creation.  I^ecessity  sharpens  the  wits ; 
religion  releases  heart  and  mind  and  conscience,  and  sends 
the  whole  man  forth  "to  unpath'd  waters,  undream'd 
shores." 

A  river  flowing  out  into  the  sea — is  it  not  a  suggestive 
symbol  of  the  life  with  God  ? 

Take  the  course  of  man's  three  score  years  and  ten, 
more  or  less,  and  blot  out  the  Christian  hope  of  life  be- 
yond, his  mortal  days  become  a  small  pond,  and  all  their 
activities  trifling  affairs,  not  the  momentous  business  of 
a  navigable  stream  which  opens  to  the  mighty  ocean. 
How  impoverished  death  appears  when  it  ceases  to  be  a 
passage  through  which  we  take  our  way  on  a  thrilling 
quest,  with  our  creative  skill  and  impulse  broad  awake 
and  expectant!  A  proposed  epitaph  for  a  Christian 
poetess  closes  with  the  lines: 

Then  the  sails  of  faith  she  spread. 
And  faring  out  for  regions  unexplored. 
Went  singing  dowa  the  River  of  the  Dead. 

A  creative  God,  who  for  long  seons  has  been  evolving 
earth,  again  and  again  essaying  yet  better  things,  surely 
promises  no  stagnant  existence  to  those  who  bear  Him 
company  in  the  fulfillment  yonder  of  the  beginnings  here. 
There  need  be  no  fear  of  a  static  perfection  which  would 
pall  upon  us  with  its  lack  of  incentive  to  enterprise.  We 
dread  no  "torment  of  all-things-compassed,  the  plague  of 
naught-to-desire."  We  shall  still  see  goals  shining  before 
us,  inviting  and  promising  and  divinely  provocative.  "  We 


Seeenity  and  Adventure  117 

do  not  place  over  the  entrance  of  heaven  the  inscription 
Dante  saw  over  the  portals  of  hell:  "All  hope  abandon 
ye  who  enter  here."  Goethe,  protesting  against  just  such 
an  inference  in  the  jiopnlar  conception  of  the  life  after 
death,  said :  "I  could  begin  nothing  with  an  eternal  happi- 
ness before  me,  unless  new  tasks  and  new  difficulties  were 
given  me  to  overcome."  But  in  St.  Paul's  outlook  hope 
abides  as  certainly  as  faith  and  love.  Emerson  put  it: 
"In  God,  every  end  is  converted  into  a  new  means."  We 
look  forward  to  no  home  without  a  horizon,  but  to  ex- 
pectant companionship  with  One  who  remains  there  as 
here  "the  God  of  hope." 

The  tides  of  the  Atlantic  send  the  salt  water  of  the 
ocean  many  miles  up  the  Hudson  to  mingle  with  the 
fresh  stream  which  pours  down  from  far  inland.  Men 
who  live  in  Christian  faith  taste  in  this  life  the  powers 
of  the  age  to  come.  And  many  miles  further  up  the  river 
than  the  salt  of  the  sea  is  perceptible  the  flow  of  the  Hud- 
son is  affected  by  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  ocean's  tide.  So 
believers  are  aware  of  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  In- 
deed there  is  no  sharp  separation  between  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Hudson;  and  those  in  whom  is  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  feel  themselves  already  in  possession  of  life  eternal. 

Take  the  immediate  prospect  before  our  generation. 
Men  and  women  of  Christian  heart,  whether  or  not  their 
heads  are  convinced  of  the  feasibility  of  the  Christian 
program,  look  wistfully  for  advances  in  racial  comrade- 
ship, in  international  friendliness,  and  in  commercial 
and  industrial  brotherhood.  We  talk  glibly  of  democracy 
■ — of  government  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  by  the 
people,  extended  to  include  every  race  and  nation,  and 


118  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

bring  all  into  a  commonwealth  of  friendly  peoples,  and 
applied  to  industrial  organizations  to  embrace  all  who 
participate  in  business  enterprises  into  a  partnership  of 
responsibility,  labor  and  reward.  What  a  huge  demand 
democracy  makes  upon  faith — faith  in  the  capacities  of 
ordinary,  and  sometimes  much  less  than  ordinary,  men 
and  women;  faith  in  the  self-evidencing  power  of  truth 
and  right  to  convince  their  reasons  and  command  their 
consciences,  even  when  reason  and  conscience  are  only 
rudimentary;  faith  in  the  fabric  of  the  universe,  seem- 
ingly so  indifferent  to  man's  aspirations,  as  responsive  to 
brotherhood.  There  is  no  short-cut  to  success  in  this 
democratic  experiment,  any  more  than  there  seems  to  have 
been  a  short-cut  to  the  creation  of  the  physical  and  moral 
world  in  which  you  and  I  live.  There  are  likely  to  be 
many  trial-starts  in  the  forms  of  fraternal  political  and 
business  organization,  as  there  have  been  many  discarded, 
because  improved-on,  forms  in  the  structures  of  plants 
and  animals  in  the  course  of  the  long  evolution  of  our 
planet.  There  are  not  a  few  among  us  without  confidence 
in  the  practicability  of  this  attempted  fraternity;  and 
unbelief  fills  them  with  fears  and  drives  them  to  compro- 
mises and  makeshifts  out  of  line  with  the  endeavor  alto- 
gether. Faith  is  assurance  of  things  hoped  for,  and  where 
there  is  no  wish  for  the  advent  of  such  a  day,  there  is 
no  likelihood  of  faith  in  its  coming.  Prepossession  is 
always  nine-tenths  of  belief.  But  where  the  heart  hopes 
for  it,  what  a  difference  when  the  head  consents,  because 
the  whole  man  is  convinced  of  the  living  God,  the  Father 
of  Jesus  Christ,  who  Himself  is  the  great  Venturer.  He 
stakes  everything  upon  the  capacities  of  His  children, 


Serenity  a:st>  Adventure  119 

least,  last  and  lowest :  He  offers  His  fullness  in  Christ  to 
every  human  being.  He  hazards  His  entire  enterprise 
upon  the  inherent  might  of  truth  and  justice  to  win  and 
hold  His  children's  allegiance.  If  these  fail,  He  has  no 
other  resources.  His  love  shown  to  the  uttermost  in  the 
cross  is  His  wisdom  and  His  power.  He  risks  His  cause 
in  a  world  where  physical  conditions  apparently  are  only 
in  process  as  yet  of  attaining  His  mind  for  them,  and  He 
trusts  that  sons  of  His  will  master  the  groaning  creation, 
and  shape  it  with  Him  to  be  a  congenial  home  for  love. 
Whole-hearted  belief  in  brotherhood,  the  assurance  of  the 
feasibility  of  this  hoped-for  consummation,  is  born  in  those 
who  are  comrades  of  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Such  believingly  venturesome  spirits  will  constantly  put 
out  towards  it,  as  the  Hudson  moves  towards  the  broad 
Atlantic. 

Take  the  subjugation  of  nature  to  human  purposes — 
the  conquest  and  utilization  of  matter  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  man.  The  Bible,  from  its  first  scene  in  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden,  where  man  is  bid  subdue  the  earth  and  have 
dominion  over  every  living  thing,  down  to  the  Christ  of 
the  Gospels  exercising  a  lordly  command  over  wind  and 
wave,  and  mastering  disease  and  want  for  man's  strength 
and  nourishment,  presents  nature  as  a  sphere  to  be  in- 
vaded. By  faith  we  not  only  "understand  that  the  worlds 
have  been  framed  by  the  word  of  God,"  but  that  they  can 
be  laid  hold  on  by  man  and  remade  to  fulfill  his  desires. 
This  faith  is  the  underlying  assumption  of  our  science, 
our  agriculture,  our  engineering.  One  looks  in  a  museum 
at  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  the  horse,  from  the  small 
four-toed  creature  about  the  size  of  a  terrier  in  the  Eocene 


120  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

Period  to  the  hoofed  wild  horse  of  the  Pleistocene;  and 
then  places  beside  that  history  of  many  hundred-thousand 
years  the  varied  breeds  of  domestic  horses,  heavier  and 
lighter,  swifter  and  stronger,  for  all  sorts  of  work  and 
play,  which  man  in  a  few  thousand  years  has  developed 
from  the  primitive  stock.  ISTature  is  marvelously  respon- 
sive to  human  wishes  and  adaptable  to  human  needs. 
Deserts  yield  to  irrigation  and  become  gardens  and  or- 
chards; pestilential  regions  are  turned  into  healthful 
dwelling-places;  plants  are  transformed  by  cultivation 
and  made  to  bear  immeasurably  fairer  blossoms  and 
richer  fruit ;  the  forces  of  wind  and  water  and  steam  and 
electricity,  and  now  of  radio-activity,  are  made  to  do  man's 
bidding.  Scientists,  like  Professor  Soddy,  tell  us  that 
we  are  in  sight  of  a  vast  new  realm  of  achievement  when 
we  learn  to  release  the  incalculable  energy  stored  in  the 
radio-active  materials  present  in  our  earth.  But  they 
are  frank  to  say  that  they  trust  that  the  discovery  will 
not  be  made  until  man  has  evolved  in  fraternity;  for  a 
pound  weight  of  such  substance  will  not  only  do  the  work 
of  150  tons  of  coal,  but  is  capable  of  doing  the  damage  of 
150  tons  of  dynamite.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  more 
truth  will  spring  out  of  the  earth  save  as  additional  right- 
eousness looketh  down  from  heaven,  that  there  will  be  no 
scientific  advances  without  commensurate  and  even  greater 
gains  in  character.  But  what  a  prospect  of  the  joint  part- 
nership of  man  and  God  in  marching  forth  on  a  conquest 
of  the  physical  universe  and  making  it  throughout  the 
servant  of  love !  How  inspiring  to  view  its  forces,  still 
so  largely  beyond  man's  control  and  often  bringing  him 
suffering  and  hardship  and  disaster,  as  waiting  his  com- 


Serenity  and  Adventtjee  121 

ing  as  son  of  God  to  bring  in  the  sway  of  the  spiritual, 
and  of  God  Himself  as  waiting  for  ns  to  be  His  comrades 
in  this  creative  completion  of  earth  to  minister  to  right- 


eousness 


Or  take  the  personal  ideal  before  every  individual — 
the  realization  of  his  complete  self.  Our  world  urgently 
needs  bigger  and  better  men  and  women,  creative  spirits 
in  art,  in  music,  in  literature,  in  science,  in  our  educa- 
tional system,  our  politics,  our  commercial  undertakings, 
our  church  organizations.  The  earnest  expectation  of  our 
age,  where  the  whole  social  order  groaneth  together  in 
pain,  waiteth  for  the  revealing  of  creative  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  creative  God.  The  very  word  "God"  stands 
to  us  for  that  venturesome  constructive  Impulse  behind 
and  in  the  universe,  manifest  as  Life,  as  Thought,  as 
Conscience,  as  Love,  manifest  supremely  in  that  recreat- 
ing Person,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  has  done  more  to 
alter  the  whole  face  of  our  world  of  men  than  any  other 
single  factor,  and  who  acts  recreatively  every  time  He  is 
brought  in  contact  with  an  individual  or  with  a  nation. 
Religion,  vital  union  with  the  God  of  Jesus  Christ,  sets 
free  the  creative  forces  within  ourselves  and  brings  to  us 
added  forces  from  His  own  abounding  vitality. 

And  in  connection  with  self-development  our  picture 
of  the  Hudson  emptying  itself  into  the  Atlantic  is  not 
without  special  appropriateness.  We  wish  to  attain  com- 
plete selves ;  and  Jesus  insists  that  he  who  would  save 
his  life  shall  lose  it,  while  ho  who  loses  his  life  for  the 
sake  of  the  cause  finds  it.  God,  as  Jesus  revealed  Him, 
is  always  losing  Himself,  hazarding  Himself  in  ventures 
of  love,  outpouring  His  thought  and  heart  and  energy 


122  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

for  the  enrichment  of  His  creatures  and  His  children, 
and  finding  His  life  in  them,  as  the  Atlantic  sends  its 
tides  up  the  Hudson  twice  every  twenty-four  hours.  And 
reciprocally,  faith,  genuine  Christian  faith,  opens  up  be- 
fore us,  now  and  forever,  an  outlet  for  the  soul  into  the 
unbounded  purposes  of  our  Father  God,  as  the  Hudson 
continually  empties  its  waters  into  the  sea.  Religion's 
inspiration  is  always  to  adventure. 

Sail  forth — steer  for  the  deep  waters  only, 
Reckless  O  soul,  exploring,  I  with  thee,  and  thou  with  me ; 
For  we  are  bound  where  mariner  has  not  yet  dared  to  go, 
And  we  will  risk  the  ship,  ourselves  and  all. 

O  my  brave  soul! 

O  farther,  farther  sail! 

O  daring  joy,  but  safe;  are  they  not  all  the  seas  of  God? 


CHAPTER  yill 

BEAUTY 

THE  Hudson  River  adds  incalculably  to  the  beauty 
of  the  whole  valley  through  which  it  flows.  When 
a  'New  Yorker  wishes  to  give  a  visitor  to  his  city 
an  impression  of  its  fine  situation,  he  takes  him  to  the 
Riverside  Drive,  where  the  broad  band  of  blue  water 
glints  in  the  sunlight  or  provides  a  silver  path  for  the 
moon;  and  conducts  him  to  one  of  the  tall  buildings 
downtown  from  which  he  can  have  sight  of  the  Hudson 
emptying  through  the  bay  into  the  distant  Atlantic.  The 
Palisades,  and,  farther  up,  the  Highlands  about  West 
Point,  would  be  robbed  of  more  than  half  their  charm 
were  the  river-bed  a  mere  plain,  instead  of  the  stream  of 
gliding  water. 

The  men  of  the  Bible  live  in  a  world  made  beautiful 
for  them,  because  through  nature  with  its  hills  and  val- 
leys and  living  things,  and  through  history  with  its 
chequered  events,  they  see  the  controlling  presence  of 
the  wise,  mighty,  righteous  and  tender  God.  "The  earth 
is  full  of  the  loving-kindness  of  the  Lord."  Devout  pa- 
triots saw  Him  as  "a  diadem  of  beauty"  to  His  people. 
Life  in  fellowship  with  Him  was  a  lovely  thing:  "Let 
the  beauty  of  the  Lord  our  God  be  upon  us."  In  a  sad- 
dening or  terrifying  experience,  possibly  in  the  face  of 
death — some  dark  and  desolate  night — a  psalmist  de- 
clares: "I  shall  be  satisfied  when  I  awake  with  the  sight 

123 


124  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

of  Thy  Form."  Worshipers  came  up  to  the  Temple  "to 
behold  the  beauty  of  the  Lord."  Impatient  of  the  adorn- 
ments with  which  the  devout  of  his  day  sought  to  make 
their  adoration  pleasing,  Amos  insisted  that  the  grandest 
sight  for  God  and  men  was  the  flow  of  life  ordered  after 
the  divine  will :  "Let  justice  roll  down  as  waters,  and 
righteousness  as  a  flooding  stream."  Paul  looks  forth  on 
the  course  God  takes  through  the  ages  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  His  eternal  purpose,  and  an  exclamation  breaks 
from  his  lips,  as  an  "Oh"  instinctively  forms  on  our 
tongues  when  a  sublime  prospect  suddenly  opens  before 
us:  "O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and 
the  knowledge  of  God !  how  unsearchable  are  His  judg- 
ments and  His  ways  past  tracing  out!"  And  Jesus  with 
a  keen  eye  for  loveliness  has  a  scale  of  ascending  appre- 
ciations. He  prizes  lilies  of  the  field,  birds  of  the  air 
and  all  creatures,  then  mounts  to  human  beings:  "How 
much  is  a  man  of  more  value  than  a  sheep" ;  and  finally 
climbs  from  man  at  his  best  in  fatherly  affection  to  the 
Most  Highest:  "How  much  more  shall  your  heavenly 
Father!"  The  world  for  Jesus  is  radiant  because  His 
God  is  Lord  of  earth  and  heaven. 

There  is  a  debate  whether  beauty  exists  in  things 
themselves  or  only  in  us  who  perceive  them.  A  British 
scientist.  Professor  Thomson  of  Aberdeen,  has  recently 
contended  for  the  fact  of  beauty  as  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  nature,  and  says  that  "in  the  age-long  struggle  for 
existence  the  unharmonious,  the  'impossible,'  have  been 
always  weeded  out  before  they  took  firm  root  and  multi- 
plied. The  monster  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Mere- 
dith put  it  all  in  a  nutshell  when  he  said  'Ugly  is  only 


Beauty  125 

half  way  to  a  thing.'  N'ature  pronounces  her  verdict 
on  ugliness  by  eliminating  it."  But  capacities  for  seeing 
and  enjoying  the  beautiful  are  required.  Stevenson  wrote : 
"After  we  have  reckoned  up  all  that  we  can  see  or  hear 
or  feel,  there  still  remains  to  be  taken  into  account  some 
sensibility  more  delicate  than  usual  in  the  nerves  affected, 
or  some  exquisite  refinement  in  the  architecture  of  the 
brain,  which  is  indeed  to  the  sense  of  the  beautiful  as 
the  eye  or  the  ear  to  the  sense  of  hearing  or  sight."  These 
eyes  and  ears  of  the  spirit  are  developable  organs.  When 
we  look  forth  upon  the  pageant  of  the  universe  the  eyes 
of  the  heart  report  loveliness  there,  but  they  also  see  hid- 
eous blemishes,  the  sickening  spectacle  of  pain,  the  loathe- 
some  presence  of  mean  and  cruel  and  sordid  evil.  The 
outlook  differs  largely  according  to  the  capacity  or  in- 
capacity of  the  eyes  to  see  the  prospect  centering  in  a 
spiritual  purpose.  Blot  God  out  of  the  landscape,  cease 
viewing  the  course  of  events  as  ordered  by  a  wise  and 
kindly  thought,  regard  men  as  lonely  orphans  whose  de- 
sires are  unconsidered  by  an  iron  universe,  give  up  look- 
ing at  pain  and  death  as  elements  in  their  education  for 
an  ampler  life  and  evil  as  an  intrusive  alien  from  whose 
sway  they  are  being  redeemed,  and  is  it  not  like  removing 
the  Hudson,  and  leaving  in  its  place  a  swamp  or  an  arid 
flat? 

So  it  has  seemed  to  those  who  have  felt  obliged  to  part 
with  Christian  faith.  The  French  philosopher,  Jouffroy, 
has  described  how  one  December  night  he  faced  his  long 
developing  doubts  and  concluded  that  honesty  compelled 
him  to  admit  that  he  was  no  longer  a  believer:  "This 
moment  was  a  frightful  one;  and  when  towards  morning 


126  What  Is  There  ix  Religion? 

I  threw  myself  exhausted  on  my  bed,  I  seemed  to  feel 
an  earlier  life,  so  smiling  and  so  full,  go  out  like  a  fire, 
and  before  me  another  life  opened,  somber  and  unpeopled, 
where  in  future  I  must  live  alone,  alone  with  my  fatal 
thought  which  had  exiled  me  thither,  and  which  I  was 
tempted  to  curse.  The  days  which  followed  this  discovery 
were  the  saddest  of  my  life."  Romanes,  Darwin's  bril- 
liant pupil,  found  the  evolutionary  explanation  of  life 
banishing  God  for  him,  and  owned:  "The  universe  has 
lost  for  me  its  soul  of  loveliness."  Lafcadio  Hearn,  teach- 
ing in  a  Japanese  University  where  he  found  his  students 
without  religion,  says  in  a  letter:  "You  can't  imagine 
how  many  compositions  I  get  containing  such  words  as 
— 'Is  there  a  God?  I  don't  know' — ^which,  strange  as 
it  may  seem  to  you,  doesn't  rejoice  me  at  all.  I  am  ag- 
nostic, atheist,  anything  theologians  like  to  call  me;  but 
what  a  loss  to  the  young  mind  of  eighteen  or  twenty  years 
must  be  the  absence  of  all  that  sense  of  reverence  and 
tenderness  which  the  mystery  of  the  infinite  gives.  Re- 
ligion has  been  very  much  to  me,  and  I  am  still  pro- 
foundly religious  in  a  vague  way.  It  will  be  a  very  ugly 
world  when  the  religious  sense  is  dead  in  all  children." 
James  Thomson  entitles  his  sincere  attempt  to  portray 
the  world  as  it  appeared  to  his  godless  view,  "The  City  of 
Dreadful  Night" ;  and  thinking  of  an  earlier  fellow-poet, 
William  Blake,  to  whom  hideous  and  heartless  London 
had  accorded  the  same  unwelcoming  treatment  it  had 
given  him,  but  whose  London  had  contained  a  Divine 
presence,  he  pens  lines  which  have  a  pathos  when  we 
recall  their  writer's  unbelief: 


Beauty  127 

He  came  to  the  desert  of  London  town, 

Gra J  miles  long ; 
He  wandered  up  and  he  wandered  down, 

Singing  a  quiet  song. 

He  came  to  the  desert  of  London  town, 

Mirk  miles  broad; 
He  wandered  np  and  he  wandered  down, 

Ever  alone  with  God. 

Thomson's  memory  of  his  own  believing  days  reminded 
him  how  to  Blake's  eyes  the  drab  and  dingy  streets  would 
wear  a  glory  they  did  not  now  show  to  him. 

And  believers  themselves  have  time  and  again  spoken 
of  the  beauty  with  which  Christian  faith  has  covered  for 
them  the  appearance  of  all  things.  Jonathan  Edwards 
(the  memory  of  whose  sensitive  soul  has  been  obliterated 
by  the  recollection  of  one  or  two  grim  details  in  a  theol- 
ogy which  he  shared  with  most  of  his  contemporaries) 
describes  his  unfolding  religious  life:  "My  sense  of  di- 
vine things  gradually  increased,  and  became  more  and 
more  lively,  and  had  more  of  that  inward  sweetness.  The 
appearance  of  everything  was  altered ;  there  seemed  to  be, 
as  it  were,  a  calm,  sweet  cast,  or  appearance  of  divine 
glory,  in  almost  everything.  God's  excellency.  His  wis- 
dom, His  purity  and  love,  seemed  to  appear  in  every- 
thing ;  in  the  sun,  moon  and  stars ;  in  the  clouds  and  blue 
sky;  in  the  grass,  flowers  and  trees;  in  the  water  and 
all  nature;  which  used  greatly  to  fix  my  mind.  And 
scarce  anything  among  all  the  works  of  nature  was  so 
sweet  to  me  as  thunder  and  lightning;  formerly  nothing 
had  been  so  terrible  to  me."    Henry  Ward  Beecher  tells 


128  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

how  the  realization  of  God's  providence  transfigured 
earth  and  sky  for  him:  "In  an  instant  there  rose  up  in 
me  such  a  sense  of  God's  taking  care  of  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  Him  that  for  an  hour  all  the  world  was 
crystalline,  the  heavens  were  lucid."  In  the  biography 
of  a  young  professor  of  economics  in  a  far-western  uni- 
versity, who  died  a  few  years  ago,  there  is  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  him  by  a  well-known  architect  and  artist  in 
San  Francisco,  appealing  to  him  not  to  impoverish  his 
life  by  banishing  the  beauty  of  religion :  "From  the  first," 
writes  this  correspondent,  "the  word  'God,'  spoken  in  the 
comfortable  (almost  smug)  atmosphere  of  the  old  Uni- 
tarian congregation,  took  my  breath  and  tranced  me  into 
a  vision  of  a  great  flood  of  vibrating  light,  and  07ihj  light. 
.  .  .  You  are  building  yourself  into  a  vault  in  which  no 
flowers  can  bloom,  because  you  have  sealed  the  high  win- 
dow of  the  imagination  so  that  the  frightening  God  may 
not  look  in  upon  you — this  same  window  through  which 
simple  men  get  an  illumination  that  saves  their  lives, 
and  in  the  light  of  which  they  communicate  kindly,  one 
with  the  other,  their  faith  and  hopes.  .  .  .  You  need 
beauty — you  need  all  the  escapes — all  the  doors  wide 
open — and  this  seemingly  impertinent  letter  is  merely 
the  appeal  of  one  human  creature  to  another,  for  the  sake 
of  all  the  human  creatures  whom  you  have  it  in  your 
power  to  endow  with  chains  or  with  wings."  To  such  be- 
lievers 

Heaven  above  is  softer  blue. 
Earth  around  is  sweeter  green, 

Something  lives  in  every  hue 
Christless  eyes  have  never  seen. 


Beauty  129 

There  have  always  been  devotees  of  the  religion  of 
loveliness  for  whom  beauty  was  the  clearest  disclosure 
of  God.  One  thinks  of  the  Greeks  in  antiquity  who  re- 
vered truth  and  goodness  as  divine,  but  who  felt  that  these 
must  be  seen  as  lovely  in  order  to  be  adored.  So  they 
reared  temples  in  charming  sites  which  were  white  de- 
lights of  symmetrical  marble,  celebrated  sacred  festivals 
with  dramas  of  unsurpassed  moving  power,  and  carved 
statues  of  gods  of  incomparable  grace  and  dignity.  Lu- 
cian  writes  of  the  majestically  benign  figure  of  Zeus  at 
Olympia :  "Those  who  approach  the  temple  do  not  con- 
ceive that  they  see  ivory  from  the  Indies  or  gold  from  the 
mines  of  Thrace;  no,  but  the  very  son  of  Kronos  and 
Rhea,  transported  by  Phidias  to  earth  and  set  to  watch 
over  the  lonely  plain  of  Pisa."  Dion  Chrysostom  says 
of  this  same  figure:  "He  was  the  type  of  that  unattain- 
able ideal — Hellas  come  to  unity  with  herself;  in  expres- 
sion at  once  mild  and  awful,  as  befits  the  giver  of  life 
and  all  good  gifts,  the  common  father,  savior  and  gaiard- 
ian  of  men ;  dignified  as  a  king,  tender  as  a  father,  awful 
as  giver  of  laws,  kind  as  protector  of  suppliants  and 
friends,  simple  and  great  as  bestower  of  increase  and 
wealth;  revealing,  in  a  word,  in  form  and  countenance, 
the  whole  array  of  gifts  and  qualities  proper  to  his  su- 
preme divinity."  And  there  is  a  note  of  personal  con- 
fession when  he  records  the  religious  impression  this 
statue  makes:  "He  who  is  heavy-laden  in  soul,  who  has 
experienced  many  misfortunes  and  sorrows  in  his  life, 
and  from  whom  sweet  sleep  has  fled,  even  he,  I  think,  if 
he  stood  before  this  image,  would  forget  all  the  calamities 
and  troubles  that  befall  in  human  life." 


130  "What  Is  Theee  ix  Religiox? 

And  while  Greece  and  lier  worship  of  the  Divine 
through  beauty  belong  to  the  past,  we  still  find  a  present- 
day  analogy  in  many  of  the  temples  of  Japan ;  the  Chion-iu 
at  Kyoto  or  the  Daibiitsu  at  Kamakura  may  easily  be 
compared  with  the  most  notable  shrines  of  Hellas.  Japa- 
nese temples,  set  in  lovely  nooks,  their  grounds  shaded 
with  tall,  dark,  fragrant  cedars  (who  can  be  unaffected 
by  the  cryptomerias  of  Xara  or  I^^ikko?),  cooled  with 
running  brooks  or  lily  pools,  quiet  save  for  the  occasional 
booming  of  a  deep-toned  bell  or  the  cooing  of  pigeons, 
with  exquisite  bits  of  lawn  and  patches  of  color  in  flowers 
and  shrubs,  and  with  the  immobile  face  of  a  colossal 
Amida  Buddha  concealed  among  the  softening  shadows 
of  a  high-roofed  shrine,  appeal  to  the  most  undevout  with 
a  suggestive  charm. 

And  in  nominal  Christendom  throughout  the  centuries 
there  have  often  been  believers  whose  religion  was  de- 
votion to  beauty.  One  thinks  of  the  period  of  the  Ren- 
aissance in  particular,  and  of  those  in  our  day,  like  Mat- 
thew Arnold  and  Walter  Pater,  who  have  stood  for  the 
Hellenic  view  of  life.  Bernard  Shaw  makes  the  indigent 
artist  in  The  Doctors  Dilemma  gasp  with  his  dying 
breath:  "I  believe  in  Michael  Angelo,  Velasquez  and 
Rembrandt ;  in  the  might  of  design,  the  mystery  of  color, 
the  redemption  of  all  things  by  beauty  everlasting,  and 
the  message  of  art  that  has  made  these  hands  blessed. 
Amen,  Amen."  It  has  been  an  insufficient  faith  whose 
adherents  may  remain  selfish,  aloof  from  the  wrongs  and 
pains  of  the  mass  of  men,  untouched  by  humility,  un- 
moved to  sympathy  with  any  who  lack  taste,  and  some- 
times fouled  by  gross  self-indulgences.     But  it  has  been 


Beauty  131 

a  real  religion  with  soothing,  uplifting,  stimulating  in- 
spirations. Goethe  is  its  most  outstanding  modern  dev- 
otee, and  his  latest  English  biographer  concludes  a  two- 
volume  survey  of  his  career :  "So  it  was  with  him  to  the 
end — unceasing  endeavor,  ever-widening  views,  constant 
renewal  of  the  springs  of  life."  A  talented  young  archi- 
tect who  had  undergone  a  harrowing  grief  recently  pub- 
lished a  sonnet  in  The  Yale  Review,  in  which  he  makes 
Beauty  say: 

He  that  keeps  faith  with  me  will  surely  find 

My  substance  in  the  shadows  on  the  deep. 

My  spirit  in  the  courage  that  men  keep 
Though  all  the  stars  burn  out  and  Heaven  goes  blind 

When  sorrow  smites  thee,  look!  my  joy  is  near, 

Flashing  like  sunlight  on  a  falling  tear. 

Those  who  through  sublime  or  pleasant  sights  and  sounds 
and  thoughts,  hold  communion  with  "that  Beauty  which 
penetrates  and  clasps  and  fills  the  world"  have  no  con- 
temptible fellowship  with  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth. 
But  from  the  Christian  standpoint  it  is  a  fractional 
religion.  God  is  to  be  found  not  primarily  in  beauty, 
but  in  self-spending  devotion.  He  is  not  loveliness;  He 
is  love.  One  of  the  greatest  figures  of  the  Eenaissance, 
Michael  Angelo,  has  put  his  confession  of  the  inadequacy 
of  the  worship  of  beauty  in  a  sonnet  penned  in  old  age : 

Now  hath  my  life  across  a  stormy  sea 

Like  a  frail  bark  reached  that  wide  port  where  all 

Are  bidden  ere  the  final  reckoning  fall 
Of  good  and  evil  for  eternity. 
Now  know  I  well  how  that  fond  phantasy, 


132  "What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

Which  made  my  soul  the  worshiper  and  thrall 

Of  earthly  art  is  vain,  .  .  . 
Painting  nor  sculpture  now  can  lull  to  rest 
My  soul,  that  turns  to  His  great  love  on  high, 

Whose  arms  to  clasp  us  on  the  cross  were  spread. 

Christians  hegin  with  the  heauty  of  holiness,  with  God  as 
Christlike.  A  religious  service  which  satisfies  the  aesthetic 
nature  without  committing  the  conscience  to  the  exacting 
demands  of  Jesus,  without  enlightening  the  intelligence 
with  His  mind  and  kindling  the  heart  with  His  passion, 
does  not  supply  Christian  inspirations.  An  outlook  upon 
life  which  sees  a  kindly  Deity  ("le  hon  Dieu")  smiling 
upon  His  foolish  and  frivolous  children,  and  not  over- 
hard  upon  them  when  they  prove  fiendish  to  one  another, 
is  at  a  far  remove  from  the  ITew  Testament  whose  God 
is  a  consuming  fire.  A  righteous  Father  creating  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  after  His  heart  for  His  children, 
whose  love  costs  Him  untold  suffering  as  He  gives  Himself 
in  Jesus  and  in  His  followers  to  redeem  a  world  for  which 
He  is  responsible,  and  whose  true  sons  and  daughters 
share  His  conscientiousness  and  do  not  spare  themselves 
in  bringing  to  pass  His  purpose — that  is  the  God  of 
Christian  conviction. 

And  this  conception  of  the  Jesuslike  God  is  far  love- 
lier than  any  other,  and  suffuses  with  wondrous  beauty 
the  world  in  which  He  is  seen  at  work,  and  in  which  men 
work  with  Him  in  His  creative  plan.  Greek  Christians 
found  Jesus  fairer  than  the  most  charming  deities  they 
had  known.  Clement  of  Alexandria  speaks  of  Jesus  as 
"our  new  Orpheus,"  and  dwells  on  the  resistless  music 
of  His  words  and  life.     Gregory  of  !N"eo-Caesarea  says: 


Beauty  133 

"He  attracts  all  to  Himself  by  His  unutterable  beauty." 
Augustine,  whose  mind  was  steeped  in  Plato,  fills  his 
Confessions  with  adjectives,  for  which  we  find  difficulty 
in  discovering  English  equivalents,  to  describe  the  at- 
traction which  God  seen  in  Christ  has  for  him.  As  he 
reviews  his  past  before  he  came  to  whole-hearted  faith, 
it  is  its  ugliness  that  impresses  him:  "Too  late  came  I 
to  love  Thee,  O  Thou  loveliness,  both  so  ancient  and  so 
fresh,  yea,  too  late  came  I  to  love  Thee."  And  all  down 
the  Christian  ages  believers  feel,  and  seek  to  make  others 
feel,  the  beauty  of  life  with  God  as  Jesus  embodies  it. 
One  finds  it  in  Latin  Christianity  with  its  hymn  to  "Jesu 
dulcis  memoria,"  and  in  the  German  address  to  "Schon- 
ster  Herr  Jesu,"  while  an  English  dissenter  sings : 

Fairer  is  he  than  all  the  fair 
That  fill  the  heavenly  train. 

The  Quaker,  William  Penn,  concludes  his  preface  to 
George  Fox's  Journal  with  an  appeal  to  the  reader,  in 
which  he  subscribes  himself  as  "one  ...  to  whom  the 
way  of  Truth  is  more  lovely  and  precious  than  ever, 
and  who  knowing  the  beauty  and  benefit  of  it  above  all 
worldly  treasure,  has  chosen  it  for  his  chicfest  joy;  and 
therefore  recommends  it  to  thy  love  and  choice,  because 
he  is  with  great  sincerity  and  affection  thy  soul's  friend, 
"William  Penn."  And  the  Puritan  Jonathan  Edwards, 
whose  aesthetic  nature  we  have  already  observed,  discov- 
ers the  main  appeal  of  the  Gospel  to  be  "this  sight  of  the 
divine  beauty  of  Christ  that  bows  the  will  and  draws  the 
hearts  of  men." 


134  TVhat  Is  Tiieee  ii^  Religion  ? 

Beauty  is  primarily  to  be  enjoyed,  but  many  among 
us  do  almost  everything  with  their  religion  except  enjoy 
it.  Their  thought  of  God  is  a  spur  to  neglected  duty. 
It  is  a  light  illumining  an  obligation  to  be  shouldered. 
It  is  a  reinforcement  in  a  difficult  and  draining  enter- 
prise. It  is  a  prop  to  uphold  a  man  under  a  crushing 
load.  It  is  a  challenge  summoning  forth  on  the  high 
seas  to  do  business  in  great  waters.  But  it  is  rarely  an 
enhancement  of  life,  rendering  lovely  the  outlook  upon 
circumstances,  the  world's  ongoings,  upon  present  ex- 
periences and  remotest  prospects.  Christians  are  aware 
that  it  does  this  for  them,  but  they  hesitate  to  indulge 
themselves  in  delighting  in  the  view.  They  feel  uncom- 
fortable when  they  admit  to  themselves  the  solid  satis- 
faction of  religion.  They  grant  that  the  "Westminster 
divines  were  not  lacking  in  keen  conscience,  but  they 
are  chary  of  approving  their  statement  that  "man's  chief 
end  is  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Hhn  forever."  They  are 
haunted  with  the  fear  that  it  is  selfish  to  enjoy  God.  And 
it  would  be,  were  their  enjoyment  a  selfish  enjoyment. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  enjoy  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus 
Christ  selfishly.  When  men  come  close  enough  to  Him  to 
appreciate  Him,  to  be  held  by  Him  as  companions,  to 
what  hazardous  and  exacting  adventures  for  their  brethren 
He  takes  them.  Life  with  Him,  who  declares  "I  will  be 
that  I  will  be"  is  a  river  carrying  them  out  to  the  un- 
bounded ocean.  And  their  usefulness  as  religious  forces 
depends  upon  their  pleasure  in  the  life  with  God.  En- 
thusiasts are  the  only  proselytizers.  Appreciation — ap- 
preciation of  nature,  of  poetry,  of  music,  of  anything 
whatsoever — appreciation  of  religion  is  caught  from  and 


Beauty  135 

increased  by  contact  with  the  appreciative.  "Worship" 
is  an  Anglo-Saxon  compound  from  "worth-ship" — "to 
give  value  to."  Our  delight  in  God  is  the  measure  of  His 
value  to  us.  In  any  situation  to  worship  Him  is  both 
to  use  the  benefit  which  He  confers — refreshment,  or 
cleansing,  or  power,  or  guidance — and  to  think  of  the 
satisfaction  to  be  had  in  Him.  When  we  drink  from 
the  tiny  Hudson  starting  forth  on  Mt.  Marcy,  we  not  only 
find  our  thirst  slaked  with  the  cold  water,  but  our  souls 
feasted  with  the  beauty  of  the  brook.  When  we  sail  on 
the  lower  reaches  of  the  river,  we  are  not  only  upborne 
by  the  buoyancy  of  the  stream,  but  we  are  also  enriched 
with  exquisite  views — Palisades  rising  in  brown  cliffs 
topped  with  green,  one  of  the  Highlands  looming  in 
grandeur  with  the  blue  water  winding  about  its  base,  and 
all  along  the  sloping  sides  of  the  valley — in  spring  with 
blossoming  orchards  and  dark,  new-plowed  fields,  in  mid- 
summer with  a  dozen  shades  and  tints  of  cool  green,  in 
October  with  flaming  crimsons  and  gold,  and  as  we  steam 
at  night  with  towns  and  isolated  houses  agleam  with 
lights.  When  we  trust  ourselves  to  God,  we  are  enriched 
not  only  with  the  answer  of  our  urgent  need  for  upholding 
or  stimulus  or  peace,  but  also  with  the  beauty  of  life  with 
Him,  who  makes  all  things — the  opposition  of  the  belated 
good,  the  indifference  of  the  many,  the  devilishness  of 
the  few,  the  ghastly  cross,  the  imprisoning  grave — work 
together  for  good  unto  them  that  love.  That  is  the  har- 
mony and  rhythm  brought  to  life  by  religion.  When 
we  "survey"  the  cross,  it  appears  "wondrous":  "love  so 
amazing"  fascinates  our  whole  nature — soul,  life,  all. 
The  presentation  of  the  Christian  religion  as  inherently 


136  "What  Is  Theke  in  Religion? 

beautiful,  and  as  vastly  enhancing  life  with  its  loveliness, 
deserves  far  more  attention  than  it  commonly  receives. 
Few  of  the  faiths  which  Christianity  is  seeking  to  sup- 
plant, or  rather  to  consummate,  by  bringing  their  adher- 
ents under  the  sway  of  Jesus,  have  not  trained  their 
devotees  to  some  extent  to  experience  the  Divine  through 
Beauty.  The  saying  is  attributed  to  Mahomet:  "If  a 
man  have  two  loaves  of  bread,  let  him  exchange  one  for 
some  flowers  of  the  narcissus:  for  bread  nourishes  only 
the  body,  but  to  look  on  the  narcissus  feeds  the  soul." 
Even  in  the  intense  economic  pressure  of  China  and  of 
India,  their  people  have  not  lost  the  eye  for  the  lovely, 
and  associate  it  with  devout  aspiration.  While  we  have 
no  interest  in  cultivating  the  aesthetic  taste  apart  from 
a  sensitized  conscience,  we  dare  not  overlook  any  capacity 
for  appreciation  to  which  Christ  can  be  rendered  appeal- 
ing. The  great  'New  Testament  word  "grace"  never 
wholly  lost  its  earlier  aesthetic  connotation.  "The  grace 
of  God"  is  a  phrase  which  presents  His  love  as  doing 
something  marvelously  lovely. 

On  many  missionary  fields  much  remains  to  be  done 
in  enabling  the  Church  to  present  the  Scriptures  in  a 
literary  form  comparable  in  majesty  and  winsomeness 
to  the  German  and  English  versions  of  the  Bible ;  to  sup- 
ply the  people  with  hymns  as  finely  lyrical  as  their  best 
non-Christian  songs;  to  furnish  her  congregations  with 
houses  of  worship  which  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  sensibil- 
ities of  the  community;  and  to  enlarge  the  scope  of  her 
work  to  reach  the  artistically  susceptible,  as  well  as  seek- 
ers after  truth  and  men  of  dissatisfied  conscience — in 
short,  to  proclaim  "the  grace  of  God." 


Beauty  137 

And  within  Christendom  it  is  often  possible  to  ap- 
proach those  whose  minds  find  intellectual  difficulties  in 
the  Christian  message  with  the  appeal  of  its  enhancement 
of  life.  George  Romanes,  whom  we  have  already  quoted, 
after  he  had  passed  through  his  eclipse  of  faith,  in  speak- 
ing of  Jesus  to  a  group  of  working-men,  said:  "What- 
ever answers  different  persons  may  give  to  the  questions, 
'What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?  Whose  Son  is  He  V  every  one 
must  agree  that  'His  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful.'  " 
There  is  a  haunting  charm  about  Him  which  captivates 
even  those  whose  minds  find  trouble  in  fitting  Him  into 
their  view  of  the  universe,  or  of  readjusting  their  view 
of  the  universe  to  accord  with  their  impressions  of  Him. 

And  at  the  moment  when  the  mood  of  many  is  the 
jaded  and  cynical  temper  of  the  disillusioned,  there  is 
special  point  in  stressing  the  loveliness  of  the  Christian 
outlook.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  opened  to  the  child- 
like, and  the  awakening  of  the  sense  of  beauty  is  a  chief 
road  to  regaining  the  heart  of  a  little  child.  Francis 
Thompson,  in  one  of  the  most  exquisitely  penned  essays  in 
our  tongue,  presented  the  religious  worth  of  the  poetry 
of  Shelley  to  ecclestiastics,  who  thought  ill  of  this  poet 
because  of  his  break  with  the  traditional  creed  and  moral- 
ity, and  warned  them  that  in  his  eye  for  loveliness  he 
possessed  conspicuously  that  childlike  spirit  which  Jesus 
so  stressed:  "Know  you  what  it  is  to  be  a  child?  It  is 
to  be  something  very  different  from  the  man  of  to-day. 
...  It  is  to  believe  in  love,  to  believe  in  loveliness,  to 
believe  in  belief;  it  is  to  be  so  little  that  the  elves  can 
reach  to  whisper  in  your  ear ;  it  is  to  turn  pumpkins  into 
coaches,  and  mice  into  horses,  lowness  into  loftiness,  and 


138  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

nothing  into  everytliing,  for  each  child  has  its  fairy  god- 
mother in  its  own  soul ;  it  is  to  live  in  a  nutshell  and  to 
count  yourself  the  king  of  infinite  space;  it  is 

To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand, 

And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand, 

And  eternity  in  an  hour; 

it  is  to  know  that  you  are  under  sentence  of  life,  nor 
petition  that  it  be  commuted  into  death."  In  the  reac- 
tion which  has  so  widely  followed  the  idealism  of  the  War, 
to  train  men's  minds  afresh  to  prize  things  lovely  and 
to  baptize  their  spirits  into  wonder  is  a  preparation  for 
a  rebirth  of  faith.  "Wondering  he  shall  come  to  the 
kingdom." 

l^or  can  we  forget  the  holding  power  of  beauty.  Many 
who  have  lost  confidence  in  the  truth  of  the  Bible,  and 
have  come  to  view  its  ideals  as  obsolete,  continue  to  read 
its  pages  for  their  sheer  fascination.  When  the  Scrip- 
tures are  barred  from  the  curriculum  of  schools  and  col- 
leges because  of  religious  prejudice,  it  would  be  a  vast 
gain  could  they  be  brought  back  simply  as  great  litera- 
ture— which  they  indisputably  are.  Their  stately  sen- 
tences and  musical  cadences,  their  apt  metaphors  and 
pithy  sayings,  their  vivid  characterizations  of  several 
hundred  interesting  figures,  captivate  the  fancy.  Through 
the  charm  of  the  literature  men  are  drawn  into  its  view 
of  life  suffused  with  the  beauty  of  the  presence  of  its 
God.  This  emphasizes  the  duty  of  the  Christian  Church 
to  present  her  message  and  order  her  worship  as  beauti- 
fully as  she  can.     The  English  historian,  J.  R.  Green, 


Beauty  139 

when,  traveling  on  the  Continent,  once  wrote  to  his  fel- 
low-historian, Freeman,  "I  am  going  to  High  Mass  to- 
morrow, inasmuch  as  Catholicism  has  an  organ  and  Prot- 
estantism only  a  harmonium,  and  the  difference  of  truth 
between  them  don't  seem  to  me  to  make  up  for  the  dif- 
ference of  instruments." 

Many,  and  probably  almost  all  believers  at  times,  find 
it  hard  to  be  sure  of  the  correctness  of  Jesus'  interpreta- 
tion of  life.  It  is  seldom  easy  to  believe  that  this  is  a 
world  under  the  control  of  a  God  who  is  love.  When  it 
seems  too  good  to  be  true,  it  is  well  to  insist  that  it  ap- 
pears good.  When  heaven  overhead  seems  vacant  and 
earth  about  us  a  shambles,  it  is  no  small  thing  if  in  the 
mind  there  hangs  the  idyllic  Galilean  picture  of  a  world 
in  which  a  thoughtful  Father  clothes  the  lilies  and  caters 
for  the  sparrows  and  numbers  the  hairs  of  His  children's 
heads.  It  may  be  labeled  an  illusion,  but  let  it  be  con- 
fessed a  beautiful  illusion.  It  then  possesses  a  man's  vote 
to  be  true  if  it  can,  and  prepossession  is  nine-tenths  of 
belief. 

We  began  with  the  assertion  of  the  scientist  that  beauty 
is  inherent  in  the  structure  of  things.  That  which  we 
discover  to  be  beautiful,  can  hardly  be  out  of  all  rela- 
tion with  reality.  If  the  monstrous  is  in  process  of  elim- 
ination, the  beautiful  is  on  its  way  to  being  established. 
A  foremost  writer  on  aesthetics,  the  Italian  philosopher 
Croce,  defines  beauty  as  "successful  expression."  To 
Christians  Jesus  is  the  incarnation,  the  Self-expression, 
of  God.  Does  not  the  charm  of  Jesus  suggest  "success- 
ful expression"  and  point  to  an  ultimate  Being  at  the 
heart  of  the  universe  whom  He  manifests?    Wordsworth 


140  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

claimed  that  a  poet's  task  was  "to  add  sunshine  to  day- 
light." Daylight  is  sufficient  to  see  by,  but  what  an  ad- 
dition the  sunshine  makes  to  all  we  see!  According  to 
the  Christian  interpretation,  God  works  poetically;  He 
adds  to  useful  prose  the  spell  of  musical  verse.  He  has 
expressed  Himself  successfully  in  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem, 
the  Teacher  of  Galilee,  the  vicarious  Sufferer  on  the 
cross,  the  triumphant  Lord.  He  has  made  HimseK  known 
and  felt  to  our  satisfied  delight. 

A  characteristic  of  beauty  is  enduring  power.  Plu- 
tarch, writing  several  centuries  after  Phidias  planned 
and  carved,  speaks  of  his  figures  and  buildings  as  "still 
fresh  and  new  and  untouched  by  time,  as  if  a  spirit  of 
eternal  youth,  a  soul  that  was  ageless,  were  in  the  work 
of  the  artist."  Keats  put  the  same  discovery  in  the  fa- 
miliar lines: 

A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever; 
Its  loveliness  increases;  it  will  never 
Pass  into  nothingness. 

That  is  true  these  many  generations  after  of  the  expres- 
sion of  God  in  the  Son  of  Mary.  The  fascination  of 
Jesus  abides.  The  satisfaction  which  men  take  in  Him 
grows.  Each  age  finds  new  meaning  in  the  old  titles, 
"The  Desire  of  Nations,"  "The  Saviour  of  the  World," 
"Wonderful  Counsellor,"  "Prince  of  Peace,"  "The  Friend 
of  Sinners,"  "The  altogether  Lovely." 

And  this  "successful  expression"  of  the  Divine  is  not 
confined  to  Jesus,  but  extends  to  every  soul  brought  under 
the  spell  of  His  Spirit,  Men  and  women  through  whom 
something  of  the  heart  and  conscience  of  Christ  are  dis- 


Beauty  141 

closed  possess  an  ^^naging  loveliness.  They  seem  not  to 
belong  to  a  passing  day,  much  less  to  a  past  day,  but  to 
be  harbingers  of  a  fairer  to-morrow.  Saintc  Beuve  com- 
plains that  the  worldly  Montaigne  has  "no  notion  of  that 
inverse  moral  and  spiritual  perfection,  that  growing  ma- 
turity of  the  inner  being  under  the  withering  outer  en- 
velope, that  second  birth  and  immortal  youth,  which 
makes  the  white-haired  old  man  seem  at  times  only  in 
his  first  bloom  for  the  eternal  springtime."  The  lines 
with  which  the  Elizabethan  hymn-writer  describes  the 
heavenly  city,  are  a  true  portrait  of  what  is  in  the  heart 
of  those  in  whom  the  river  of  Christ's  Spirit  flows,  and 
in  social  groups  where  that  same  stream  finds  an  un- 
impeded way: 

Thy  gardens  and  thy  gallant  walks 

Continually  are  green ; 
There  grow  such  sweet  and  pleasant  flowers 

As  nowhere  else  are  seen ; 
Quite  through  the  streets  with  silver  sound 

The  flood  of  life  doth  flow. 
Upon  whose  banks  on  every  side 

The  wood  of  life  doth  grow. 

To  believers  Christ  is  the  "successful  expression"  of 
God.«  Following  Him  they  find  "sunshine  added  to  day- 
light," all  things  enhanced  with  beauty.  There  are  ugly 
blemishes  still  upon  the  world — corporate  relations  and 
many  men,  women  and  little  children,  untouched  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Son  of  man.  They  cannot  rest  in  an  artistic 
view  of  existence  which  makes  a  harmonious  unity  by 
eliminating  the  inappropriate.     God's  Self-expression  is 


142  What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

not  completely  successful  until  the  charm  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  seen  and  felt  in  the  life  of  nations  and  cities,  and  of 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people,  made  immortally  fair 
by  the  flow  in  them  of  the  River  of  God. 


CHAPTER  IX 

DIVISION    AND    UNITY 

WE  think  of  the  Hudson  River  as  a  dividing  bar- 
rier, cutting  off  Manhattan  Island  from  the 
mainland,  and  separating  the  states  of  I^ew 
York  and  New  Jersey.  Religion  has  always  been  a  divi- 
sive factor,  compelling  believers  to  draw  sharp  lines. 
Their  faith  enjoins  certain  things  and  forbids  others.  It 
presents  them  with  alternatives  of  righteousness  and  sin, 
and  insists  upon  clean-cut  decisions.  It  resolves  Abram 
to  emigrate  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  Moses  to  choose 
"rather  to  suffer  ill  treatment  with  the  people  of  God 
than  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a  season,"  'Ne- 
hemiah  to  refuse  the  easy  ways  of  his  official  predeces- 
sors: "So  did  not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of  God."  It 
places  an  "I  must"  on  the  lips  of  Jesus,  lays  necessity  on 
the  conscience  of  St.  Paul,  and  sets  Martin  Luther  in 
protest  against  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  with  an  "I 
can  do  no  other."  A  river  has  well  defined  banks,  and 
religion  covers  the  moral  landscape  with  as  plain  bound- 
aries. Whoso  has  felt  the  Spirit  of  the  Highest  takes 
an  unequivocal  position: 

Yea,  with  one  voice,  O  world,  though  thou  deniest, 
Stand  thou  on  that  side,  for  on  this  am  I. 

Even  those  whose  religion  is  theologically  vague,  and  who 
show  scant  regard  for  the  conventional  usages  of  worship, 

143 


144  What  Is  Thebe  ix  Religion? 

insist  that  God  demands  clean,  kind,  industrious  living. 
George  Meredith  writes  to  his  boy :  "Keep  pure  in  mind, 
unselfish  in  heart  and  diligent  in  study.  This  is  the  right 
way  of  worshiping  God,  and  is  better  than  hymns  and 
sermons  and  incense.  We  find  it  doubtful  whether  God 
blesses  the  latter,  but  cultivate  the  former,  and  you  are 
sure  of  Him.  Heed  me  well,  when  I  say  this.  And  may 
God  bless  you  forever,  I  pray  it  nightly."  The  religion 
of  the  Bible  is  uncompromising  in  its  exaction  that  men 
of  God  distinguish  plainly  between  His  will  and  what- 
ever opposes  or  lies  outside  it,  and  that  they  make  it  their 
moral  frontier:  "Ye  that  love  the  Lord  hate  evil." 

This  divisiveness  has  often  been  carried  to  absurd  ex- 
tremes. It  has  led  believers  to  cultivate  singularity  for 
its  own  sake ;  witness  the  ascetics  of  all  the  centuries,  for 
whom  the  supreme  command  has  been:  "Come  ye  out 
from  among  them,  and  be  ye  separate."  It  has  frequently 
fostered  wretched  sectarian  narrowness,  where  the  ortho- 
dox would  scarcely  associate  with  those  whose  beliefs 
were  deemed  unsound.  An  elderly  '^ew  Yorker  recalls 
how  her  Presb}i;erian  parents  did  not  like  to  have  her 
play  with  the  children  of  a  Unitarian  neighbor,  and 
Ohio  Methodists,  themselves  life-long  Republicans,  ques- 
tioned whether  they  might  conscientiously  vote  for  a 
fellow-Ohioan  of  Unitarian  faith  for  the  presidency  of 
the  Republic.  Irenseus  reports  the  story  of  the  aged 
apostle  John  running  out  of  a  house  at  Ephesus,  when 
he  heard  that  the  heretic,  Ccrinthus,  was  under  the  same 
roof.  The  tipsy  Falstaff  cries:  "If  I  be  drunk,  I'll  be 
drunk  with  those  that  have  the  fear  of  God."  It  has 
sundered  Christians  in  hostile  ecclesiastical  camps,  while 


Division  and  Unity  145 

all  professed  supreme  allegiance  to  the  unifying  Spirit 
of  love.  Bernard  Shaw  says  of  his  native  Ireland:  "If 
religion  is  that  which  hinds  men  to  one  another,  and 
irreligion  that  which  sunders,  then  must  I  testify  that  I 
found  the  religion  of  my  country  in  its  musical  genius, 
and  its  irreligion  in  its  churches  and  drawing-rooms." 
Shaw  is  right  in  Christian  eyes  when  he  declares  that 
religion  is  that  which  binds  men  to  one  another:  ours  is 
the  worship  of  Christlike  love  in  heaven  and  earth;  but 
it  is  none  the  less  a  separating  stream.  It  does  not  divide 
men  as  correct  and  mistaken  thinkers,  or  as  strict  and 
lax  worshipers,  or  even  as  believers  and  infidels,  but  it 
classes  them  as  loving  and  selfish.  Inasmuch  as  ye  did 
it,  or  did  it  not,  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  My 
brethren,  ye  did  it,  or  did  it  not,  unto  Me — so  runs  a 
sentence  of  judgment  which  erects  an  eternal  partition. 
"Every  one  that  loveth  is  begotten  of  God  and  knoweth 
God.  He  that  loveth  not,  knoweth  not  God;  for  God  is 
love." 

Yes,  this  river  of  God  divides.  Religious  conviction 
sharpens  the  conscience  to  "distinguish  things  that  dif- 
fer." We  are  obliged  to  adopt  the  godlike  course  as  the 
way  of  life,  and  to  shun  all  others  as  leading  to  death. 

But  the  Hudson  River  is  a  unifier.  Across  its  waters 
hundreds  of  ferries  ply,  and  up  and  down  stream  steam- 
ers and  barges  convey  passengers  and  freight.  JSTavigable 
rivers  are  connecting  arteries  establishing  easy  inter- 
course between  towns  miles  apart.  Religion  unifies; 
indeed  religion  furnishes  the  only  ultimate  basis  of  unity. 

Look  at  the  differences  that  divide.  To  begin  with, 
take  the  difference  between  ourselves  and  the  physical 


146  What  Is  There  ix  Religiox  ? 

universe.  Mrs.  Browning  is  evidently  uttering  a  bit  of 
autobiography  in  the  lines: 

You  who  keep  account 
Of  crisis  and  transition  in  this  life, 
Set  down  the  first  time  Nature  says  plain  "no" 
To  some  "yes"  in  you,  and  walks  over  you 
In  gorgeous  sweeps  of  scorn.     We  all  begin 
By  singing  with  the  birds,  and  running  fast 
With  June  days,  hand  in  hand;  but,  once  for  all, 
The  birds  must  sing  against  us,  and  the  sun 
Strike  down  upon  us  like  a  friend's  sword  caught 
By  an  enemy  to  slay  us,  while  we  read 
The  dear  name  on  the  blade  which  bites  at  us ! — 
That's  bitter  and  convincing;  after  that 
We  seldom  doubt  that  something  in  the  large 
Smooth  order  of  creation  .  .  .  has  gone  wrong. 

We  are  at  one  with  the  physical  world,  bone  of  its  bone, 
flesh  of  its  flesh,  life  of  its  life,  dust  of  its  dust;  but  it 
is  not  at  one  with  us.  There  is  nothing  in  it  akin  to 
our  mind  and  heart.  If  both  it  and  we  had  one  Maker, 
we  are  tempted  to  fancy  that  He  made  man  with  His 
right  hand  and  all  things  else  with  His  left,  and  did  not 
let  His  right  hand  know  what  His  left  was  doing.  Car- 
lyle  in  old  age,  walking  with  a  friend  beside  the  Thames, 
exclaimed:  "There  is  healing  in  the  air  and  sunshine; 
but  the  sun  and  air  and  water  care  nothing  for  man's 
dreams  or  desires;  they  have  no  part  nor  lot  wi'  us." 
Whittier  voices  the  impression  of  the  impersonality  of 
natural  forces  in  the  lines  in  Snow-Bound: 

The  shrieking  of  the  mindless  wind. 
The  moaning  tree-boughs  swaying  blind, 


Division  and  Unity  147 

And  on  the  glass  the  unmeaning  beat 
Of  ghostly  finger-tips  of  sleet. 


We,  with  our  affections  and  ideals  of  duty,  are  constantly 
at  odds  with  a  scheme  of  things  in  which  there  is  suffer- 
ing, decay  and  death.  Earth  sometimes  in  its  beauty 
seems  a  playroom,  and  sometimes  in  its  law-abidingness  a 
school-room,  and  sometimes  in  its  painfulness  a  torture- 
chamber.  What  can  reconcile  us  with  the  physical  uni- 
verse ? 

Science  proposes  to  investigate  everything,  and  gain- 
ing control  over  all  forces  to  harness  them  to  man's  will 
— a  unity  of  complete  knowledge  and  mastery.  Art  at- 
tempts to  select  and  combine  the  delightful  and  har- 
monious elements  in  sound  or  color,  and  even  to  present 
the  disagreeable  and  jarring  elements  beautifully,  as 
Shakespeare  portrays  the  tragedy  of  a  Hamlet  or  a  Lear 
— a  unity  of  pleased  feeling.  Biblical  religion  goes 
deeper  and  asserts  that  there  is  genuine  unity — "one  God 
and  Father  of  all,  who  is  over  all  and  through  all  and 
in  all."  Our  metaphor  of  the  river  fits  that  saying  of 
St.  Paul's:  the  Divine  Spirit  flows  from  above  through 
and  in  everything,  linking  all  in  a  oneness  of  life.  To 
be  sure  there  is  by  no  means  as  much  of  the  Hudson  in 
the  noisy  brook  which  runs  down  the  slope  of  Mt.  Marcy 
as  in  the  stately  stream  which  sweeps  past  Tarrytown 
and  l^yack.  In  impersonal  existences — sun  and  air  and 
water — there  is  as  much  of  the  Spirit  of  God  as  they  can 
contain — God  as  energy,  law,  adaptability  to  human 
service.  In  living  creatures  there  is  more — God  as  in- 
stinct,   feeling,    rudimentary    conscience,    capacity    for 


148  "What  Is  There  j-n  Religion  ? 

higher  development.  In  mankind  there  is  more  still — 
God  as  reason,  conscience,  affection.  Religion  agrees 
with  science  that  man  is  to  study  and  master  forces ;  and 
it  pictures  these  forces  as  awaiting  his  mastery:  "The 
earnest  expectation  of  the  creation  waiteth  for  the  re- 
vealing of  the  sons  of  God."  But  it  goes  farther,  and 
declares  that  where  we  cannot  understand,  much  less 
control,  the  forces  pitted  against  us — inevitable  death  for 
example — we  can  still  view  them  fearlessly,  as  known 
and  ruled  by  our  wise  and  kind  Father,  and  go  down 
before  them  triumphantly,  as  Jesus  on  the  cross.  Re- 
ligion agrees  with  art  that  there  is  a  way  of  viewing 
existence  which  renders  it  delightful;  but  this  is  not  by 
merely  selecting  some  elements  in  life,  while  closing  our 
eyes  to  others.  All,  harmonious  and  incongruous,  pleas- 
ant and  heart-breaking,  fair  and  ugly,  are  to  be  cordially 
accepted,  moulded  if  possible  to  the  soul's  desire,  and 
where  they  prove  intractable,  still  accepted  confidently 
as  being  moulded  for  us  by  the  Hand  of  God.  "To  them 
that  love  God  all  things  work  together  for  good." 

Let  us  take  some  instances  of  the  Christian's  recon- 
ciliation with  unwelcome  things.  Milton's  sonnet  On 
His  Blindness  is  familiar;  fewer  know  the  letter  which 
he  wrote  to  Leonard  Philaras,  which  concludes: 

"And  so  whatever  ray  of  hope  there  may  be  for  me 
from  your  famous  physician,  all  the  same,  as  in  a  case 
quite  incurable,  I  prepare  and  compose  myself  accord- 
ingly. .  .  .  My  darkness  hitherto,  by  the  singular  kind- 
ness of  God,  amid  rest  and  studies,  and  the  voices  and 
greetings  of  friends,  has  been  much  easier  to  bear.  .  .  . 
If,  as  is  written,  'Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone/  what 


Division  and  Unity  149 

should  prevent  one  from  resting  likewise  in  the  belief 
that  his  eyesight  lies  not  in  his  eyes  alone,  but  enough 
for  all  purposes  in  God's  leading  and  providence  ?  Verily, 
while  only  He  looks  out  for  me  .  .  .  leading  me  forth 
with  His  hand  through  my  whole  life,  I  shall  willingly, 
since  it  has  seemed  good  to  Him,  have  given  my  eyes  their 
long  holiday.  And  to  you,  den.r  Philaras,  whatever  may 
befall,  I  now  bid  farewell,  with  a  mind  not  less  brave 
and  steadfast  than  if  I  were  Lynceus  himself  for  keen- 
ness of  sight." 


Milton  is  willing  to  profit  by  the  skill  of  any  physician, 
but  facing  what  seems  incurable  blindness,  his  faith 
unites  him  with  it  courageously.  Religion  is  a  river  con- 
necting in  friendship  an  eager  spirit  and  a  grim  physical 
limitation. 

When  General  William  Booth  was  a  very  old  man, 
his  eyesight  failed  him,  and  the  treatment  given  him 
proved  ineffective.  It  fell  to  his  son,  Bramwell,  to  break 
the  news  to  the  veteran  leader  that  he  must  abandon  hope 
of  seeing  again.  He  received  the  statement  calmly,  and 
after  a  little  silence  said:  "Bramwell,  I  have  done  what 
I  could  for  God  and  for  the  people  with  my  eyes,  ISTow 
I  shall  do  what  I  can  for  God  and  for  the  peojDle  without 
my  eyes."  This  is  the  same  faith  which  led  Paul  to 
acquiesce  in  his  "stake  in  the  flesh."  He  prayed  earnestly 
to  be  freed  from  that  impediment  to  sei'vice;  but  when 
this  was  denied,  he  not  only  still  persevered,  but  per- 
severed with  good  grace:  "Most  gladly  therefore  will  I 
rather  glory  in  my  weaknesses,  that  the  power  of  Christ 
may  rest  upon  me." 

Or  take  the  difference  between  a  man  and  his  fellow- 


150  What  Is  There  ix  Religion? 

mortals.  All  onr  dealings  with  other  people  stand  on  the 
assumption  that  there  is  a  spiritual  kinship  between  us 
and  them.  "We  take  for  granted  that  what  is  truth  for 
us,  is  truth  for  Esquimaux  and  Chinese  and  Patagonians ; 
so  we  work  for  the  spread  of  education  all  over  the  world. 
"We  assume  that  what  is  beautiful  to  us  is  also  beautiful 
to  all  races,  red  and  yellow  and  black.  There  may  be 
differences  of  taste  in  many  matters,  but  an  autumn  sun- 
set, or  the  sound  of  rippling  water,  or  a  lark's  song,  is 
lovely  to  all.  What  is  best  in  the  literature  or  in  the  art 
of  any  people,  even  a  primitive  people,  has  an  appeal 
for  all  mankind.  "We  assume  that  ideals  of  justice,  of 
goodwill,  of  brotherhood,  command  the  assent  of  savage, 
barbarian  and  civilized  men.  Conscience  may  need 
awakening,  but  there  is  a  dormant  responsiveness  to  right 
in  every  one;  and  there  is  no  "East  of  Suez,  where  the 
best  is  like  the  worst"  on  the  map  of  our  world.  So  we 
plan  international  agreements  and  talk  of  international 
law.  The  universal  appeal  of  truth,  of  beauty,  of  right, 
is  taken  for  granted  by  religious  and  irreligious,  and 
this  river  of  spiritual  kinship  makes  possible  intercourse 
between  all  groups  of  human  beings. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  know  that  a  river  which  flows 
by  your  town  also  flows  by  others  many  miles  distant, 
and  quite  another  thing  to  be  drawn  to  embark  on  its 
waters  and  travel  to  them.  To  Christians,  Truth,  Beauty, 
Right,  are  names  for  the  one  living  God.  We  view  our 
Father  encompassing  every  life  with  His  love,  and  call- 
ing us  out  towards  them  in  sympathy  and  service.  "When 
men    interpret   the   river   of   their  spiritual   kinship    as 


Division  and  Unity  151 

Jesus  interpreted  it,  then  it  becomes  a  matter  of  obliga- 
tion to  revere,  trust  and  serve  them  as  Christ  has 
served  us. 

Look  at  the  distances  which  separate  groups  of  men 
in  races,  in  nations,  in  economic  classes,  to-day;  and 
what  can  unite  them?  Some  are  convinced  that  they 
never  will  be  linked  in  friendship.  They  admit  that  a 
spiritual  likeness  connects  them,  but  they  regard  this  as 
affording  the  chance  for  hostile  contacts,  as  a  river  pro- 
vides the  meeting-place  for  battling  war-canoes  from  en- 
campments of  savages  who  dwell  on  its  shores.  What 
quantities  of  books  our  presses  have  turned  out  upon 
racial  conflicts,  and  rival  nationalistic  interests,  and  the 
strife  of  classes!  But  those  for  whom  the  connecting 
river  is  the  Spirit  of  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ 
are  assured  that  this  stream  carries  us  to  friendship.  We 
do  not  think  that  the  towns  along  the  river  must  lose  their 
separate  identity,  and  form  one  unbroken  chain  of 
monotonous  city  water-front  the  whole  length  of  the 
stream.  We  do  not  believe  that  religion  demands  the 
obliteration  of  racial  divisions,  or  the  fusing  of  nations, 
or  even  economic  equality.  The  landscape  formed  by  a 
river  lined  by  a  continuous  series  of  city  streets  on  a  flat 
level  would  have  little  charm.  It  is  the  towns,  smaller 
and  larger,  with  their  distinctive  characteristics  and 
marked  differences,  on  higher  and  lower  land,  all  joined 
by  the  one  band  of  blue  water,  on  which  boats  come  and 
go  in  happy  and  helpful  commerce,  which  gives  the  pic- 
ture its  attraction.  Let  Christlike  convictions  concerning 
God  and  man,   and  the  consequent  Christlike  conscien- 


152  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

tiousness,  govern  tlie  contacts  of  races  and  nations,  and 
of  the  various  groups  in  industry  and  commerce,  and 
the  unity  required  is  achieved. 

This  is  not  mere  theory;  it  is  confirmed  by  abundant 
experience  where  such  Christian  intercourse  has  been 
tried.  Witness  the  record  of  William  Penn's  relations 
with  the  Indians,  of  the  dealings  of  sincere  missionaries 
with  peoples  of  many  lands,  of  our  own  country's  hand- 
ling of  the  Boxer  indemnity  with  China  and  our  treat- 
ment of  Cuba  after  the  Spanish  War,  of  Britain's  atti- 
tude to  South  Africa  under  the  ministry  of  Sir  Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman  at  the  close  of  the  contest  with  the 
Boer  Republics,  of  the  relations  between  employers  and 
operatives  in  factories  where  cooperative  efforts  have  been 
undertaken  and  carried  on  with  genuine  mutual  confi- 
dence. 

At  a  Post-Communion  Service  at  Bandawe  in  Central 
Africa  an  elder  told  how  he  had  been  a  slave  and  had 
been  sold  and  re-sold  some  half-dozen  times.  Then  hear- 
ing of  the  settlement  of  the  Livingstonia  Mission,  he  fled 
from  his  owner  and  reached  the  Station,  where  he  heard 
that  great  pioneer.  Dr.  Robert  Laws,  preaching  on 
Isaiah  Ixv :  25,  and  urging  the  people  to  open  their 
hearts  to  the  love  of  God,  which  would  put  an  end  to 
war  among  the  tribes. 

"  'Put  your  faith  in  God,'  "  the  Sing'anga  said,  "  'obey 
His  word,  and  the  leopard  shall  yet  lie  down  with  the 
lamb  and  the  kid  in  the  same  kraal  in  peace.'  In  my 
heart  I  said,  'White  man,  you  lie!'  And  yet,  what  do  I 
see  now?     The  leopard  and  the  lamb  together  at  peace, 


Division  and  Unity  153 

indeed.     Ngoni  and  Tonga  here  at  the  same  Communion 
Table  r 


The  satisfactory  contacts  between  races  and  nations  and 
industrial  groups,  where  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  has  been 
seriously  followed,  are  beyond  dispute.  It  demanded 
courageous  faith  in  primitive  man  to  venture  himself  in 
his  crude  dug-out  on  the  surface  of  a  stream  and  risk 
intercourse  with  strangers;  but  that  faith  was  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  era  of  social  progress.  It  demands  cou- 
rageous faith  still  in  racial  leaders  and  statesmen,  in 
employers  and  employees,  to  trust  themselves  in  experi- 
mental plans  of  comradeship  to  the  river  of  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  and  to  move  out  towards  those  whose  differences 
from  themselves  are  patent,  but  that  faith  will  mark  a 
new  epoch  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

And  inside  the  groups  of  human  beings  religion  is  the 
ultimate  unifier.  The  first  of  such  groups  is  the  family. 
It  is  bound  together  by  physical  and  economic  and  senti- 
mental attachments;  but  we  sec  these  ties  snapping,  and 
husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  parting,  and 
parting  with  appalling  frequency  in  our  American  life. 
The  conventional  reasons,  which  in  the  past  have  kept 
them  from  separating,  have  grown  weaker  so  swiftly  in 
recent  years,  that  the  statistics  of  broken  homes  in  the 
United  States  become  more  and  more  terrifying  to  all 
who  regard  permanent  family-life  as  the  basis  of  a 
healthy  commonwealth.  Divorces  in  our  country  have 
more  than  doubled  in  twenty  years — from  61,000  in 
1901  to  132,000  in  1920,  and  in  several  states  there  is 
one  divorce  recorded  for  every  four  or  five  marriages. 


164  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

Physicians,  lawyers,  ministers,  friends,  who  are  called  on 
to  try  to  hold  together  lives  pulling  apart,  know  how 
fragile  the  marriage-tie  is  to-day.  The  New  Testament 
speaks  of  marrying  "in  the  Lord" — that  is,  under  Christ's 
control.  In  the  wedding  service  the  solemn  phrase  is 
used:  "Those  whom  God  hath  joined  together,"  which 
surely  does  not  mean  merely  that  this  couple  have  taken 
pledges  to  each  other  in  a  religious  ceremony.  God  can- 
not join  lives,  save  as  both  allow  Him  to  form  their  con- 
sciences, rule  their  instincts,  and  inspire  their  purposes. 
It  is  romantic  love  hallowed  with  religious  conscience, 
of  which  Mr.  Lowell  writes  in  lines  concerning  his  wife, 
where  he  uses  the  metaphor  of  our  parable: 

I  love  her  with  a  love  as  still 

As  a  broad  river's  peaceful  might, 
Which  by  high  tower  and  lowly  mill, 
Goes  wandering  at  its  own  sweet  will, 
And  yet  doth  ever  flow  aright. 

And,  on  its  full,  deep  breast  serene, 

Like  quiet  isles  my  duties  lie; 
It  flows  around  them  and  between, 
And  makes  them  fresh,  and  fair,  and  green, 

Sweet  homes  wherein  to  live  and  die. 

Or  take  the  religious  group — the  Christian  Church — 
for  whose  unification  we  so  often  pray  and  arrange  con- 
ferences. It  may  seem  a  truism  to  say  that  we  shall  get 
no  further  towards  Church  unity  until  there  is  more  of 
the  Christian  religion  in  the  churches.  But  that  is  the 
plain  fact.  Some  of  our  divisions  rest  upon  interpreta- 
tions of  history,  and  we  need  more  faith  in  the  God  of 


Division  and  Unity  155 

truth  to  bring  an  honest  facing  of  history.  In  1864 
Newman  wrote  to  Father  Coleridge: 

"JSTothing  would  be  better  than  an  Historical  Review 
for  Eoman  Catholics — but  who  would  bear  it  ?  Unless 
one  doctored  all  one's  facts,  one  would  be  thought  a  bad 
Catholic." 

And  the  same  can  be  said  of  many  Protestants  in  their 
attitude  towards  historical  investigations  of  the  Bible. 
Woe  to  the  scholar  who  frankly  reports  what  he  finds! 
He  will  fare  hardly  in  the  educational  institutions  of 
many  of  our  communions.  More  of  our  divisions  rest 
at  present  upon  differences  of  taste,  of  temperament,  of 
social  status.  We  need  a  more  moving  apprehension  of 
God  as  love  to  carry  us  out  in  an  inclusive  fellowship, 
which  shall  allow  within  its  communion  fullest  freedom 
for  all  these  inevitable  differences.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
recounts  an  experience  which  emancipated  his  spirit  from 
denominationalism : 

"I  remember  riding  through  the  woods  for  long,  dreary 
days,  and  I  recollect  at  one  time  coming  out  into  an  open 
place  where  the  sun  shone  down  through  the  bank  of  the 
river,  and  where  I  had  such  a  sense  of  the  love  of  Christ, 
of  the  nature  of  His  work  on  earth,  of  its  beauty  and 
grandeur,  and  such  a  sense  of  the  miserableness  of  Chris- 
tian men  quarreling  and  seeking  to  build  up  antagonistic 
churches — in  other  words  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  rose  up 
before  my  mind  with  such  supreme  loveliness  and  maj- 
esty— that  I  sat  in  my  saddle  I  do  not  know  how  long 
(many,  many  minutes,  perhaps  half  an  hour),  and  there 
all  alone,  in  a  great  forest  of  Indians,  probably  twenty 
miles  from  any  house,  I  prayed  for  that  Kingdom,  saying 
audibly :  'I  will  never  be  a  sectary.'  " 


156  What  Is  Theee  ix  Religion? 

It  is  such  a  full  stream  of  appreciation  of  Christ  and  of 
the  urgency  of  His  cause  on  which  fellow-Christians  of 
widest  differences  of  opinion  and  tradition  and  tempera- 
ment can  be  borne  into  closest  comradeship  with  one 
another. 

Groups — families,  churches,  communities,  nations — 
are  fused  by  a  common  passion  and  kept  together  by  a 
common  obligation.  The  Christian  faith  furnishes  the 
most  kindling  enthusiasm  and  the  most  sensitive  con- 
scientiousness. "The  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad,"  wrote 
Paul,  using  our  metaphor,  "The  love  of  God  is  pouring 
as  a  stream  to  flow  in  our  hearts." 

And  the  most  serious  disunity  exists  within  a  man's 
self.  There  is  the  glaring  contradiction  between  what 
he  should  have  been  and  what  he  is.  Phaedra,  who  has 
calumniated  Hippolvtus  and  brought  on  his  death,  cries, 
in  Euripides'  drama: 

Oh,  I  am  sick  with  shame ! 

Aye,  but  it  hath  a  sting!  ... 
Could  I  but  die  in  one  swift  flame 

Unthinking,  unknowing. 

Augustine,  commenting  on  the  Thirty-third  Psalm,  in- 
terjects a  personal  experience :  "Whither  fly  I  ?  Whither- 
soever I  go  my  self  followeth  me."  Religion  brings  its 
message  of  forgiveness  to  whoever  repents,  turning  reso- 
lutely from  his  past,  however  awful.  Forgiveness  does 
not  wipe  out  that  past.  It  remains  part  of  ourselves,  and 
just  because  it  remains,  we  can  remold  it.  The  flaws  of 
our  past  are  the  river-bed  down  which  the  stream  of  the 
divine  mercy  is  poured.     We  are  reconnected  with  our 


Division  and  Unity  15 Y 

former  self,  only  connected  by  the  stream  of  God's  life, 
which  supplies  us  with  power  to  repair  whatever  is 
reparable,  and  which  transforms  the  ugly  landscape  by 
His  presence,  enabling  us  to  live  with  our  else  loathed 
self,  as  a  river,  flooding  an  arid  and  cracked  bottom, 
suffuses  it  with  beauty. 

There  is  the  divergence  between  a  man's  aspirations 
and  his  inclinations.  Every  one  knows  himself  a  bundle 
of  contradictions.  Sir  James  Stephen  has  sketched  the 
character  of  Henry  Martyn,  the  future  missionary,  in  his 
student  days: 

"A  man  born  to  love  with  ardor  and  to  hate  with 
vehemence;  amorous,  irascible,  ambitious,  and  vain; 
without  one  torpid  nerve  about  him ;  aiming  at  universal 
excellence  in  science,  in  literature,  in  conversation,  in 
horsemanship,  and  even  in  dress;  not  without  some  gay 
fancies,  but  more  prone  to  austere  and  melancholy 
thoughts;  patient  of  the  most  toilsome  inquiries,  though 
not  wooing  philosophy  for  her  own  sake ;  animated  by  the 
poetical  temperament,  though  unvisited  by  any  poetical 
inspiration ;  eager  for  enterprise,  though  thinking  meanly 
of  the  rewards  to  which  the  adventurous  aspire ;  uniting 
in  himself,  though  as  yet  unable  to  concentrate  or  to  har- 
monize them,  many  keen  desires,  many  high  powers,  and 
much  constitutional  dejection — the  chaotic  materials  of  a 
great  character." 

tAnd  he  describes  how,  under  the  preaching  of  Charles 
Simeon  at  Cambridge,  Henry  Martyn  came  to  "an  un- 
limited affiance  in  the  holiness  and  wisdom  of  Him,  in 
whose  person  the  divine  nature  had  been  allied  to  the 
human,  that  so,  in  the  persons  of  His  followers,  the  human 
might  be  allied  to  the  divine."    And  in  picturing  to  what 


158  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

this  pioneer  of  the  Kingdom  in  India  attained,  he  falls 
into  the  simile  of  our  parable: 

'^He  rose  to  the  sublime  in  character  ...  by  the 
copiousness  and  the  force  of  the  living  fountains  by 
which  his  spiritual  life  was  nourished.  .  .  .  The  ill- 
disciplined  desires  of  youth,  now  confined  within  one 
deep  channel,  flowed  quickly  onward  towards  one  great 
consummation ;  nor  was  there  any  faculty  of  his  soul,  or 
any  treasure  of  his  accumulated  knowledge,  for  which 
appropriate  exercise  was  not  found  in  the  high  enterprise 
to  which  he  was  devoted." 

The  man  was  united  within  himself  by  the  inflowing  river 
of  God,  and  all  the  dissevered  miscellaneous  elements  of 
his  nature  bound  in  one  divine  purpose,  as  the  towns  and 
villages  along  a  navigable  stream  form  a  single  business 
community. 


CHAPTER  X 


CHANGE    AND    PERMANENCE 


THE  form  which  the  Hudson  Eiver  assumes  is  de- 
termined by  the  contour  of  the  country  through 
which  it  flows.  The  stream  is  now  broader,  now 
narrower;  now  it  holds  a  straight  course  as  from  Fort 
Edward  to  ISTewburgh,  and  again  from  Stony  Point  to 
'New  York  Bay,  now  it  winds  about  as  from  the  Adiron- 
dacks  to  Glens  Falls  and  through  the  Highlands ;  now  its 
channel  is  deeper,  now  more  shallow;  now  its  banks  rise 
precipitously  as  in  the  Palisades,  or  on  Breakneck  and 
Storm  King  mountains,  or  in  the  Stony  Creek  gorge,  now 
there  is  a  gradual  slope  up  the  sides  of  the  valley.  Photo- 
graph it  at  a  number  of  points,  and  when  the  photographs 
are  ranged  side  by  side  a  stranger  might  not  recognize 
them  as  pictures  of  the  same  river. 

Geologists  reconstruct  for  us  the  Hudson  as  it  appeared 
in  bygone  ages.  The  depth  of  the  rock  channel  in  the 
Tertiary  Period  can  still  be  measured  in  the  Highlands 
some  two  thousand  feet  below  the  present  bottom.  In  the 
pre-glacial  age  instead  of  flowing  south  through  the  Stony 
Creek  gorge  to  Corinth,  the  river  ran  southeast  from 
Warrensburg  to  Glens  Falls.  There  have  been  periods 
when  the  ocean  came  up  to  the  Adirondacks,  and  periods 
when  the  land  stretched  several  hundred  miles  further  out 

to  sea  than  at  present.     When  one  traces  the  course  of 

159 


160  "What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

the  Hudson  on  these  various  maps,  it  is  a  very  different 
stream  from  the  familiar  river  of  to-day. 

The  Christian  religion  has  flowed  in  the  river-hed 
available  for  it  in  each  generation.  !N'ow  the  faith  has 
been  embodied  in  small  groups  of  humble  folk  awaiting 
a  speedy  return  of  the  Lord  to  set  up  His  kingdom ;  now 
in  a  much  larger  community,  conscious  of  a  spiritually 
present  Christ  and  interpreting  its  earlier  gospels  to 
make  Him  intelligible  to  the  people  of  the  Mediterranean 
world;  now  in  a  persecuted  Church,  living  a  hunted  life 
in  catacombs  and  obscure  meeting-places;  now  in  a  tri- 
umphant Church,  well-organized,  wealthy,  in  alliance 
with  government,  and  attempting  to  embody  its  princi- 
ples in  the  law  of  the  Empire;  now  in  companies  of 
earnest  men  and  women,  fleeing  from  a  worldly  Church 
to  live  alone  in  the  deserts  in  austere  communion  with 
the  Invisible;  now  in  an  imperial  Church,  authorita- 
tively declaring  the  will  of  God  to  kings  and  peoples, 
controlling  education,  art,  charity  and  regulating  public 
and  private  morals;  now  in  various  bodies  of  proscribed 
Protestants,  seeking  to  recover  the  primitive  religious 
experiences  of  the  N^ew  Testament;  now  in  nations  war- 
ring on  behalf  of  freedom;  now  in  nations  attempting  to 
outlaw  war  altogether  and  to  substitute  the  reign  of 
reason  and  of  Christian  conscience  for  that  of  brute 
force ;  now  in  a  Church  devoting  itself  to  save  individuals 
out  of  an  evil  world,  and  now  in  a  Church  striving  to 
let  the  Spirit  of  Christ  rule  the  world's  entire  life.  Pic- 
tures of  the  stream  of  Christianity  at  various  epochs  in 
history  or  in  its  various  forms  to-day  seem  not  to  be  rep- 
resentations of  the  same  river. 


Change  and  Permanence  161 

There  is  a  similarly  changing  appearance  when  one 
takes  the  course  of  the  river  of  the  Spirit  in  the  life  of 
any  individnal.  Think  of  the  God  of  our  own  childhood, 
and  of  the  feelings  with  which  we  regarded  Him;  then 
of  the  God  of  our  developing  youth,  if  a  God  remained 
distinctly  in  our  minds  during  those  years  when  our  out- 
look on  life  was  changing  with  kaleidoscopic  rapidity; 
then  of  the  God  of  our  young  manhood,  before  whose 
presence  momentous  decisions  were  reached,  and  of  the 
personal  relationship  with  Him  into  which  we  entered ; 
then  of  the  God  of  our  maturer  years,  sometimes  lost 
when  youth's  idealism  vanished,  sometimes  regained  with 
firmer  assurance  as  observation  and  experience  convinced 
us  of  His  necessity  and  He  seemed  the  reasonable  and 
indispensable  interpretation  of  an  otherwise  irrational 
world.  Think  of  the  varying  aspects  of  God  and  our 
own  altering  attitudes  toward  Him  which  the  circum- 
stances of  life  have  brought : — the  God  of  shame,  the  God 
of  comfort,  the  God  of  personal  intimacy,  the  God  of 
social  obligation,  the  God  of  judgment  revealed  in  a 
world-catastrophe,  the  God  of  hope  who  alone  offered  the 
power  of  repair  and  the  assurance  of  stability,  the  God 
who  hideth  Himself,  the  God  whose  hidings  prove  His 
ways  of  Self-disclosure.  John  Fiske  gave  us  a  graphic 
description  of  "a  tall  slender  man,  of  aquiline  features, 
wearing  spectacles,  with  a  pen  in  his  hand,  and  another 
behind  his  ear,"  who  stood  at  a  desk  overlooking  the 
world,  and,  assisted  by  a  recording  angel,  entered  the 
deeds  of  every  mortal  in  a  ledger.  That  was  his  child- 
hood view  of  Deity.  Frederick  William  Faber  addressed 
the  God  of  his  first  recollections  in  the  lines : 


162  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

I  could  not  sleep  unless  Thy  Hand 

Were  underneath  my  head, 
That  I  might  kiss  it,  if  I  lay 

Wakeful  upon  my  bed. 

And  quite  alone  I  never  felt, — 
I  knew  that  Thou  wert  near, 

'A  silence  tingling  in  the  room, 
A  strangely  pleasant  fear. 

But  while  notions  of  God  may  be  recalled,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  summon  back  childhood's  religion.  That  in  its 
simplicity  and  imaginativeness  and  physical  realism  is 
gone  as  irrevocably  as  the  water  that  was  in  the  Hudson 
when  you  and  I  were  under  ten.  The  maps  which  geo- 
logical historians  make  of  the  Hudson  Valley  in  the 
divers  epochs  of  the  past  are  not  more  varied  than  the 
spiritual  charts  we  should  be  obliged  to  construct,  were  we 
to  undertake  to  show  the  flow  of  religion  in  our  souls  at 
different  stages  in  our  development. 

From  of  old  a  river  has  been  the  metaphor  of  fleeting 
change.  The  stream  is  never  the  same  for  two  consecu- 
tive minutes.  The  water  is  constantly  moving.  Attempt 
to  stop  the  current  in  order  to  examine  it,  and  the  river 
itself  is  completely  altered.  You  have  a  reservoir  or  a 
lake,  not  a  flowing  stream.  This  makes  a  river  so  apt  a 
simile  of  religious  experience.  For  what  is  our  sense  of 
God  but  a  scries  of  flitting  impressions,  of  emotions  that 
rise  and  subside  in  waves,  of  moments  of  confidence  alter- 
nating with  moments  of  scepticism,  of  intense  enthu- 
siasms changing  to  placid  indifference,  of  broad  expanses 
of  heart  which  reflect  the  sunny  skies  and  narrow,  pent- 
in  currents  that  take  their  dark  course  with  power? 


Change  and  Permanence  163 

This  is  true  of  the  experience  of  the  race  as  we  trace 
the  line  of  the  river  of  religion  through  the  centuries. 
Browning's  Bishop  soliloquizes: 

Had  I  been  horn  three  hundred  years  ago, 
They'd  say,   "What's  strange?     Blougram  of  course  be- 
lieves" ; 
And,  seventy  years  since,  "Disbelieves  of  course." 
But  now,  "He  may  believe:  and  yet — and  yet — 
How  can  he  ?" 

In  one  of  Shirley's  plays,  written  in  the  time  of  Charles 
the  First,  a  character  says :  "Praying's  forgot" ;  to  which 
a  companion  remarks :  "  'Tis  out  of  fashion."  We  can 
never  expect  the  identical  theology  or  religious  habits  or 
modes  of  devout  expression  in  successive  generations. 
Dr.  Lyman  Beecher's  godly  life  reappeared  in  his  distin- 
guished children,  but  not  his  religious  opinions  and 
methods. 

There  is  the  same  continual  flux  in  the  personal  re- 
ligious experience.  Jeremiah  asks:  "O  Thou  Hope  of 
Israel,  the  Saviour  thereof  in  the  time  of  trouble,  why 
shouldest  Thou  be  as  a  sojourner  in  the  land,  and  as  a 
wayfaring  man  that  turneth  aside  to  tarry  for  a  night?" 
There  is  your  stream  always  passing.  In  the  old  story 
of  Jacob  at  the  Jabbok,  the  patriarch  is  represented  as 
trying  to  hold  the  mysterious  Visitant,  who  wrestles  with 
him  in  the  darkness,  and  as  asking  His  name,  but  the 
Divine  never  abides  man's  questions,  as  a  river  never 
stops  to  let  itself  be  examined.  In  her  account  of 
Savonarola,  George  Eliot  observes  that  a  man  "must  often 
speak  in  virtue  of  yesterday's  faith,  hoping  it  will  come 


164  What  Is  There  in  Religion? 

"back  to-morrow."  Luther  confessed  that  at  times  he  be- 
lieved and  at  times  he  doubted.  There  is  an  interesting 
letter  of  the  sturdy  Protestant  champion,  Hugh  Latimer, 
to  his  fellow-martyr,  Nicholas  Ridley,  in  which  he  writes : 
"Pray  for  me,  I  say.  For  I  am  sometimes  so  fearful, 
that  I  would  creep  into  a  mouse-hole ;  sometimes  God 
doth  visit  me  again  with  His  comfort.  So  He  cometh 
and  goeth."  Thomas  Arnold,  a  vigorous  believer,  de- 
clares: "There  are  whole  days  in  which  all  the  feelings 
or  principles  of  belief  or  of  religion  altogether  are  in 
utter  abeyance;  when  one  goes  on  very  comfortably, 
pleased  with  external  and  worldly  comforts,  and  yet 
would  find  it  difficult,  if  told  to  inquire,  to  find  a  particle 
of  Christian  principle  in  one's  whole  mind."  In  Victor 
Hugo's  Quatre-Vingt-Treize  Boisberthelot  asks  La  Vieu- 
ville:  "Do  you  believe  in  God,  chevalier?"  and  the  reply 
comes :  "Yes.  I^o.  Sometimes."  And  this  flux  of  faith, 
which  is  discovered  when  men  look  in  and  search  for  God 
within  their  souls,  is  found  also  by  those  who  scan  the 
outer  world  for  tokens  of  His  presence.  The  Duke  of 
Argyll  reports  a  conversation  with  Charles  Darwin  dur- 
ing the  last  year  of  that  scientist's  life:  "I  said  to  Mr. 
Darwin  with  reference  to  some  of  his  own  remarkable 
works  on  'Fertilization  of  Orchids'  and  on  'The  Earth- 
worms,' 'It  was  impossible  to  look  at  these  without  seeing 
that  they  were  the  effect  and  expression  of  mind.'  I  shall 
never  forget  Mr.  Darwin's  answer.  He  looked  at  me  hard 
and  said:  'Well,  that  often  comes  over  me  with  over- 
whelming force;  but  at  other  times,'  and  he  shook  his 
head  vaguely,  adding,  'it  seems  to  go  away.'  " 

The  Spirit  of  God  in  us,  like  the  Hudson  in  the  conn- 


Change  and  Permanence  165 

try  tlirougli  which  it  flows,  is  given  His  channel  by  our 
physical  conditions,  our  temperaments,  our  mental  train- 
ing. The  river  of  the  water  of  life  has  to  take  its  way 
through  the  available  watershed.  And  a  stream  is  in  its 
very  nature  ceaselessly  changing.  This  is  often  a  sore 
distress  to  devout  souls.  John  Wesley,  thinking  both  of 
himself  and  his  adherents,  enters  in  his  Diary  the  ques- 
tion: "Oh,  why  should  we  not  be  always  what  we  were 
once?"  But  the  very  attempt  to  examine  ourselves  and 
test  the  flow  of  the  Spirit  within  is  like  the  effort  to  stop 
a  river  in  order  to  investigate  it.  A  river  is  not  a  river 
except  as  it  moves.  Obstruct  it  with  a  dam,  and  the 
stream  below  runs  away,  while  the  waters  above  pile  up 
in  a  pool.  The  act  of  self-examination  for  the  moment 
destroys  the  river  of  the  water  of  life.  William  Cowper, 
the  hymn-writer,  when  dying  was  asked  by  the  physician 
how  he  felt,  and  replied:  "I  feel  unutterable  despair." 
We  explain  his  feelings  by  his  mental  and  physical  con- 
dition, and  we  see  the  abundant  stream  of  the  Spirit  in 
his  life,  which  still  flows  on  through  the  heritage  of  his 
poetry.  We  hear  Jesus  on  the  cross  crying:  "Forsaken!" 
and  in  the  same  breath  clinging  in  faith:  "My  God." 
There  are  the  changing  emotions  and  the  abiding  rela- 
tionship. 

For  a  river  is  not  only  an  appropriate  symbol  of  con- 
stant change ;  but  it  is  also  a  picture  of  permanence.  Its 
water  is  forever  flowing  away,  but  the  stream  remains 
exhaustlessly  replenished.  For  millions  of  years  there 
has  been  some  sort  of  watershed  from  the  peaks  of  the 
Adirondacks  southward  to  the  ocean.  Its  course  has  been 
affected  by  many  changes  in  the  earth's  surface.    The  sea 


166  What  Is  There  iisr  Religion  ? 

has  been  nearer  and  farther;  the  land  has  risen  and  sub- 
sided; the  mountain-tops  have  been  higher  and  the  river- 
bed much  lower;  the  path  taken  by  the  water  has  varied 
somewhat;  but  from  the  Mesozoic  Period,  at  least,  there 
has  been  a  watercourse  from  their  summits  to  the  Atlantic 
in  the  direction  where  we  locate  the  Hudson  on  our  maps. 
So  far  back  as  our  explorations  of  mankind  can  take 
us,  and  all  down  the  line  of  human  history,  we  discover 
religion — the  flow  of  inspirations  which  men  connect 
with  something  beyond  and  above  them.  In  a  recent 
text-book  of  European  archeology,  covering  the  Palaeo- 
lithic period,  Professor  Macalister  finds  indications  of 
religion  in  the  life  of  these  ancient  people,  whose  skele- 
tons or  skulls  he  examines ;  and  he  comments :  "It  is  now 
believed  that  just  as  there  is  no  race  of  people,  however 
low  in  the  scale  of  civilization,  without  language  or  with- 
out social  order,  so  there  is  no  tribe  or  race,  however 
low,  without  some  form  of  religion.  A  completely  re- 
ligionless  community  does  not  exist,  and  probably  never 
has  existed."  The  flow  of  man's  nature  towards  the  Un- 
seen appears  as  inevitable  as  the  flow  of  moisture  towards 
the  great  deep.  When  we  survey  the  Christian  centuries, 
and  study  the  stream  of  the  life  of  God  in  man  in  its 
purest  and  most  copious  flow  from  those  loftiest  moral 
heights — Bethlehem  and  Galilee  and  Calvary — we  note 
more  than  one  period  when  men  expected  this  river  to 
cease  altogether.  There  was  this  or  that  circumstance  in 
the  condition  of  the  times,  some  obstruction  in  the  thought 
or  some  absorbing  dryness  in  the  life  of  the  day,  which 
portended  its  cessation.  But  it  is  still  sweeping  on,  a 
majestic  Hudson,  when  one  views  its  breadth  and  volume 


Change  and  Permanence  16Y 

throughout  our  world ;  and  there  is  no  sign  of  any  diminu- 
tion of  its  abundance.  The  more  it  changes  in  appear- 
ance, the  more  it  remains  the  same  river.  Plutarch,  the 
Greek  historian,  wrote:  "The  divine — religion — is  some- 
thing imperishable;  but  its  forms  are  subject  to  decay. 
God  bestows  many  good  things  on  men;  but  nothing  im- 
perishable ;  for,  as  Socrates  says,  even  what  has  reference 
to  the  gods  is  subject  to  death."  But  a  Christian  con- 
temporary of  Plutarch's,  writing  to  people  who  had  wit- 
nessed revolutionary  changes  in  their  religion,  who  had 
seen  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  destroyed,  its  ritual  become 
obsolete,  and  the  whole  face  of  Judaism  transfigured  in 
the  new  hope  which  had  become  theirs  through  One 
whom  they  revered  as  the  Pioneer  and  Perfecter  of  faith, 
while  he  agrees  with  him  as  to  the  passing  forms  of  re- 
ligion, insists  that  God  has  given  man  one  abiding  ele- 
ment: "Jesus  Christ  is  the  same,  yesterday,  and  to-day, 
yea  and  forever."  The  permanent  factor  for  him  in  re- 
ligion is  to  be  found  in  Christ,  and  in  the  Christlike 
Spirit,  discovered  as  the  moving  current  amid  all  the 
changing  appearances  of  the  river's  course. 

When  one  tries  to  define  Christianity — a  very  difiicult 
undertaking  because  the  instant  you  try  to  examine  it  you 
interfere  with  its  flow  and  it  loses  its  essential  character 
— one  gets  at  its  essence  most  clearly  in  the  Christlike 
movements  in  the  thoughts  and  conduct  of  individuals 
and  social  groups.  A  river  is  found  not  in  the  water 
which  you  may  be  able  to  bail  out  in  a  pail  and  so  inves- 
tigate. The  water  ceases  to  be  a  river  the  moment  you 
capture  it  in  your  bucket.  A  river  is  found  in  the  con- 
tinuous   stream    moving   towards    the    sea-level.      Chris- 


168  "What  Is  There  ix  Religion  ? 

tianity  is  not  tlie  religious  opinions  or  the  modes  of  wor- 
ship or  the  customs  of  life  or  the  forms  of  activity  of 
any  particular  generation  of  believers  in  Jesus,  which 
one  can  take  and  examine,  very  much  as  one  hauls  up  a 
bucket  of  water  from  a  rumiing  stream.  The  water  of  a 
river  is  ceaselessly  flowing  and  the  doctrines  and  ritual 
and  usages  and  methods  of  Christians  are  forever  in  flux. 
Again  and  again  men  have  taken  Christianity  at  some 
point  in  its  course — in  the  ISTew  Testament  period,  or  in 
the  undivided  Church  of  the  first  three  centuries,  or  in 
the  epoch  of  the  Protestant  Reformation — and  insisted 
that  the  beliefs  or  the  forms  of  Church  government  or  the 
usages  in  w^orship  were  fixed  then  for  all  time.  But  sub- 
sequent centuries  can  no  more  think  with  the  minds  of 
the  apostles  or  of  the  Greek  creed-makers,  or  organize 
the  Church  after  the  pattern  of  the  early  Fathers,  than 
they  can  call  back  the  first  or  the  fourth  or  the  sixteenth 
century  in  the  stream  of  time. 

And  how  fortunate  it  is  that  one  cannot  stabilize  re- 
ligion! Froude  very  cleverly  criticized  the  attempt  of 
Anglicanism  to  establish  by  law  an  unalterable  form  of 
religious  institution  in  the  Church  of  England: 

"If  medicine  had  been  regulated  three  hundred  years 
ago  by  Act  of  Parliament ;  if  there  had  been  Thirty-nine 
Articles  of  Physic,  and  every  licensed  practitioner  had 
been  compelled  under  pains  and  penalties  to  compound 
his  drugs  by  the  prescriptions  of  Henry  the  Eighth's 
physician.  Doctor  Butts,  it  is  easy  to  conjecture  in  what 
state  of  health  the  people  of  this  country  would  at  present 
be  found." 

There   cannot   be   a    rivei   without   water;    and   there 


i 


Change  and  Permanence  169 

cannot  be  a  flow  of  the  Spirit  of  God  without  beliefs 
and  institutions  and  activities.  But  the  water  at  any 
moment  rolling  by  is  not  the  river;  and  the  ideas  and 
institutions  and  activities  even  of  the  Wew  Testament  are 
not  the  Christian  religion.  They  form  merely  the  stream 
of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  at  one  moment  in  its  long  sweep 
through  the  ages. 

One  must  watch  the  river  as  it  flows  to  describe  it 
accurately;  one  must  watch  the  Christian  Spirit  in  mo- 
tion to  get  at  the  essence  of  the  Christian  faith.  See  a 
Paul  counting  all  things  but  loss  that  he  may  be  found  in 
Christ  and  present  others  perfect  in  Him;  an  Augustine 
putting  off  his  sensual  life  and  becoming  an  wholly  re- 
newed man  in  the  service  of  Christ;  a  Francis  of  Assisi 
espousing  poverty  and  claiming  glad  kinship  as  a  child 
of  God  with  sun  and  moon,  beasts  and  birds,  and  every 
man  to  whom  he  can  minister  happiness  by  obedience  to 
Jesus;  a  Luther  discovering  that  a  Christian  man  is  the 
most  free  lord  of  all  and  subject  to  none,  and  the  servant 
of  all,  bound  to  be  to  them  what  Christ  has  been  to  him, 
and  standing  for  that  freedom  and  that  servitude  at  the 
risk  of  death;  a  Lincoln  with  malice  towards  none,  with 
charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gave 
him  to  see  the  right,  setting  free  the  bondmen,  and 
preserving  the  unity  of  a  nation ;  an  Edith  Cavell  discov- 
ering that  patriotism  is  not  enough  and  that  she  must 
die  without  hatred  or  bitterness  towards  any  one; — this 
is  Christianity,  this  is  the  permanent  current  of  the 
Christian  Spirit,  flowing  on  while  beliefs  and  institutions 
and  prayers  and  ways  of  doing  everything  change. 

An  essential  need  in  men  which  drives  them  to  religion 


170  "What  Is  There  in  Religion  ? 

is  the  desire  to  find  the  abiding  amid  the  transient,  and 
thus  attain  a  sense  of  being  at  home  in  an  estranging 
world.  A  brilliant  contemporary  Jewish  writer,  Ludwig 
Lewisohn,  who  has  recently  unveiled  his  soul  in  an  auto- 
biography which  bitterly  indicts  our  American  life,  says 
of  his  early  religious  impressions  in  a  southern  city  and 
of  that  which  drew  him  to  churches,  Protestant  and  Ro- 
man Catholic: 

"I  had  a  sense,  shadowy  and  inarticulate,  but  deep 
enough,  of  our  homelessness  in  the  universe,  of  our  ter- 
rible helplessness  before  it.  I  had  seen  something  of  mis- 
fortune and  uncertainty  and  change,  and  my  mind  de- 
sired then,  as,  with  frugal  hope,  it  does  now,  a  point  of 
permanence  in  the  'vast  driftings  of  the  cosmic  weather,' 
a  power  in  which  there  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow 
of  turning." 

He  concludes  his  bitter  narrative  with  a  total  rejection 
of  Theistic  belief,  to  which  he  attributes  all  manner  of 
social  evil,  and  with  a  violent  repudiation  of  Christian 
ethics  as  he  sees  them  embodied  in  the  current  industrial 
and  international  order;  but  his  soul  still  cleaves  with 
religious  devotion  to  truth  and  beauty  and  human  brother- 
hood— which  are  the  chief  expressions  for  others  of  the 
presence  of  the  Deity  whom  he  so  scornfully  denies.  His 
interpretation  of  the  universe  robs  him  of  that  point  of 
permanence  which  Christian  believers  find  in  God,  to 
whom  they  pray: 

Change  and  decay  In  all  around  I  see; 
O  Thou  who  changest  not,  abide  with  me. 


Change  akd  Peemanexce  171 

But  it  is  perhaps  not  so  much  "a  point  of  permanence" 
as  an  abiding  flow  of  the  Spirit  which  they  discover,  a 
stream  which  continues  despite  the  constant  passing  of 
its  water.  Up  in  the  Adirondacks,  where  the  Hudson's 
headwaters  form,  there  are  brooks  which  during  part  of 
the  year  disappear  from  sight ;  one  sees  in  their  channels 
a  dry  bed  of  stones.  One  may  notice  similar  totally  arid 
watercourses  in  men's  spirits.  Tormented  by  doubts, 
August  Hermann  Francke,  the  future  Pietist  professor 
of  Halle,  resolved  to  call  upon  God  in  whom  he  did  not 
think  that  he  believed,  and  uttered  the  remarkable  prayer : 
"Thou  art  the  cause  of  my  suffering,  O  non-existing  God, 
for  if  Thou  didst  exist,  then  should  I  also  really  exist." 
But  while  the  beds  of  our  Adirondack  brooks  may  be  dry 
in  summer,  the  moisture  is  seeping  along  through  the 
gravel  underneath.  So,  concealed  from  their  own  sight 
and  out  of  view  of  those  who  know  them  best,  the  spiritual 
stream  still  makes  its  way  in  the  souls  of  those  who  fancy 
it  has  ceased  in  them  altogether.  We  spoke  of  the  im- 
possibility of  recalling  the  religion  of  our  childhood;  but 
while  that  has  gone  irretrievably,  as  yesterday's  water  in 
any  brook  has  flowed  away,  the  stream  may  re-emerge. 
In  the  Autobiography  of  Henry  ]\I.  Stanley,  he  tells  us 
how  in  Africa  the  river  of  an  early  piety,  for  years  out 
of  sight,  suddenly  surprised  him  by  re-appearing.  Cut  off 
from  newspapers  and  unable  to  carry  other  books  along, 
he  had  with  him  a  Bible  which  he  began  to  read: 

"When  I  laid  down  the  book,  the  mind  commenced  to 
feed  upon  what  memory  suggested.  Then  rose  the  ghosts 
of  bygone  yearnings,  haunting  every  cranny  of  the  brain 
with  numbers  of  baffled  hopes  and  unfulfilled  aspirations. 


172  What  Is  There  ix  Eeligiox? 

Here  was  I,  only  a  poor  journalist,  with  no  friends,  and 
yet  possessed  by  a  feeling  of  power  to  achieve!  How 
could  it  ever  be  ?  Then  verses  of  Scripture  rang  iterat- 
ingly  through  my  mind  as  applicable  to  my  own  being, 
sometimes  full  of  promise,  often  of  solemn  warning. 

Alone  in  my  tent,  my  mind  labored  and  worked  upon 
itself,  and  nothing  was  so  soothing  and  sustaining  as 
when  I  remembered  the  long-neglected  comfort  and  sup- 
port of  lonely  childhood  and  boyhood.  I  flung  myself  on 
my  knees,  and  poured  out  my  soul  utterly  in  secret  prayer 
to  Him  from  whom  I  had  been  so  long  estranged,  to  Him 
who  had  led  me  mysteriously  into  Africa,  there  to  reveal 
Himself,  and  His  will.  I  became  then  inspired  with 
fresh  desire  to  serve  Him  to  the  utmost,  that  same  desire 
which  in  early  days  in  K'ew  Orleans  filled  me  each  morn- 
ing, and  sent  me  joyfully  skipping  to  my  work." 

Many  persons  go  through  several  transformations  in 
their  religious  views,  and  may  alter  their  church  affilia- 
tions two  or  three  times,  and  they  frequently  think  these 
changes  involve  complete  breaks  with  their  previous 
spiritual  life;  but  those  who  watch  the  course  of  their 
careers  are  aware  of  the  continuity  of  the  stream  of  in- 
spiration within  them.  Amid  the  alterations  in  our  ideas 
and  fluctuations  in  our  feelings,  we  can  say  with  a  !N"ew 
Testament  writer:  "They  shall  pass;  but  Thou  con- 
tinuest."  They  belong  to  the  outward  man  which  perish- 
eth,  while  the  inward  man  is  renewed  day  by  day.  And 
even  where  the  interruptions  in  religious  experience  are 
not  so  marked,  and  there  are  no  decided  breaks  with  the 
past,  there  are  differences  which  make  a  man  seem  a 
stranger  to  his  former  emotions  and  inspirations.  Our 
religious  associations  change  with  everything  else  in  the 
world;  new  teachers  take  the  place  of  old  ones;  old  texts 


Change  axd  Permanence  173 

acquire  new  meanings;  fresh  voices  bring  their  messages 
when  long-known  tones  no  longer  fall  upon  our  ears;  but 
there  is  familiarity  amid  difference  in  the  set  of  the  soul 
Godward.  McLeod  Campbell  writes;  "I  felt  this  morn- 
ing in  reading  an  Epistle  which  I  had  not  read  for  some 
time,  all  its  living  truth  and  divine  love  freshly  affecting 
me,  and  yet  as  what  I  had  felt  before."  Father  Faber 
goes  on  in  the  poem  to  the  God  of  his  childhood,  from 
which  we  have  already  quoted: 

Thou  broadenest  out  with  every  year. 

Each  breadth  of  life  to  meet: 
I  scarce  can  think  Thou  art  the  same, 

Thou  art  so  much  more  sweet. 

Changed  and  not  changed.  Thy  present  charms 

Thy  past  ones  only  prove; 
Oh,  make  my  heart  more  strong  to  bear 

This  ne^vness  of  Thy  love ! 

These  novelties  of  love! — when  will 

Thy  goodness  find  an  end  ? 
Wliither  will  Thy  compassions,  Lord, 

Incredibly  extend? 

And  this  brings  us  to  another  connection  between  a 
river  and  permanence.  The  constantly  flowing  stream  is 
bound  somewhither.  One  can  scarcely  look  at  the  mov- 
ing current  without  haviiig  his  thought  carried  to  its  des- 
tination: "Into  what  does  this  river  empty?"  So  is  it 
with  the  life  in  which  there  is  a  religious  current.  There 
are  men  and  women  who  give  the  impression  of  belonging 
to  this  world.  They  are  at  home  in  its  ways,  take  it  as 
they  find  it,  have  an  eye  to  its  main  chances,  are  un- 


174  What  Is  There  in  Eeligion? 

troubled  by  the  level  of  its  standards,  enjoy  its  pleas- 
ures, put  up  with  its  discomforts,  and  cast  no  wistful 
glances  towards  ideals  beyond  its  horizons.  Pontius 
Pilate  seems  to  belong  in  the  Roman  Empire.  He  has 
no  purposes  which  are  too  large  for  its  confines,  no  long- 
ings past  its  capacities  to  gratify,  no  yearning  towards 
something  beyond  and  afar  from  it.  Jesus  of  ISTazareth 
seems  a  stranger  moving  through  it,  with  both  the  sources 
and  goals  of  His  being  outside  it.  His  purposes  require 
eternitj^  for  their  fulfillment,  His  longings  only  God  and 
the  fellowship  of  innumerable  brethren  in  God  can 
satisfy.  Jeremy  Taylor  in  a  funeral  sermon  said  of  the 
Lady  Carbery:  "In  all  her  religion,  she  had  a  strange 
evenness  and  untroubled  passage,  sliding  towards  her 
ocean  of  God  and  of  infinity  with  a  certain  and  silent 
motion."  Men  and  women  of  genuine  Christian  con- 
science appear,  like  a  river,  to  be  always  e?i  route.  They 
crave  a  diviner  order  for  the  world  and  more  Christlike 
spirits  for  themselves,  and  these  cravings  of  their  souls, 
like  the  pull  of  gravitation  on  water  drawing  it  towards 
sea-level,  create  in  them  a  flow  setting  forth  towards 
love,  towards  God  who  is  love,  towards  the  vast  deep  of 
love's  full  life  for  all.  In  their  company  one  catches 
"murmurs  and  scents  of  the  infinite  sea."  They  feel 
with  the  hymn-writer: 

Rivers  to  the  ocean  run, 

]^or  stay  in  all  their  course;  .  .  . 

So  my  soul,  derived  from  God, 

Pants  to  view  His  gloriou^s  face, 

Forward  tends  to  His  abode, 
To  rest  in  His  embrace. 


Change  and  Permanence  1Y5 

A  second  life  has  no  attraction  for  those  who  are  bored 
with  this.  Those  who  "kill  time"  here,  are  not  allured 
by  the  prospect  of  an  eternity  "to  kill"  yonder.  But  they 
whose  aims  for  themselves,  for  their  beloved,  for  man- 
kind, are  as  far-reaching  as  those  of  Jesus  need  limitless 
scope  for  their  achievement.  And  as  the  river  in  its 
steady  movement  bears  witness  to  the  existence  of  the 
ocean  towards  which  it  glides,  so  men  and  women  moving 
towards  divine  purposes  testify  to  the  existence  of  a 
spiritual  sea-level  in  the  universe — to  God  and  life 
eternal  in  and  with  Him.  The  river  is  always  moving 
out  from  the  land  which  has  formed  its  banks,  but  its 
waters  are  not  lost.  "The  world  passeth  away  and  the 
lust  thereof,  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth 
forever." 

We  began  our  discussion  with  the  somewhat  impatient 
and  cynical  question:  "What  is  there  in  religion  any- 
how?" We  have  used  the  Hudson  River  as  a  parable 
of  the  various  benefits  which  the  stream  of  the  Spirit  of 
faith  renders  to  believers.  Many  think  that  there  is 
nothing  but  self-hypnosis  in  religious  belief.  Men  fancy 
a  God,  driven  to  this  imagination  by  their  sex  impulse, 
or  by  some  other  unsatisfied  element  in  their  natures; 
and  then  they  derive  comforts  and  incentives  from  the 
contemplation  of  this  imagined  Lover,  Father  and 
Friend.  But  does  that  explanation  really  account  for  the 
facts?  One  need  not  deny  that  the  religious  impulse  is 
closely  related  with  those  of  sex  and  of  hunger.  Indeed 
it  belongs  with  the  most  primitive  and  strongest  im- 
pulses in  man's  make-up;  it  is  an  essential  component  of 
his  being.     But  is  it  conceivable  that  from  an  illusion 


1Y6  What  Is  There  ix  Eeligion? 

men  and  women  through  many  generations  have  derived 
refreshment,  cleansing,  power,  ilhimination,  frnitfnlness, 
buoyancy,  adventure,  beauty,  unity,  a  sense  of  perma- 
nence ?  It  is  no  imaginary  Hudson  which  affords  cor- 
responding benefits  to  those  who  live  in  its  neighborhood. 
Why  should  the  stream  of  religion,  conferring  these 
vastly  more  valuable  spiritual  benefits,  be  any  more  illu- 
sory ?  In  response  to  a  Questionnaire  sent  out  by  Profes- 
sor Pratt,  now  of  Williams  College,  William  James  wrote 
that  he  believed  in  God  because  "the  whole  line  of  testi- 
mony on  this  point  is  so  strong  that  I  cannot  pooh-pooh 
it  away,  ^o  doubt  there  is  a  germ  in  me  of  something 
similar  that  makes   response." 

If  the  religious  impulse  in  man  be  intimately  allied 
with  that  of  sex,  why  is  it  not  an  evidence  of  an  equally 
objective  reality?  Do  not  organisms  develop  in  response 
to  external  stimuli — plants  evolving  chlorophyll  in  an- 
swer to  light,  bodies  the  haemoglobin  in  red  corpuscles  in 
answer  to  oxygen?  Is  not  faith  a  response  in  the  soul 
to  as  real  a  God  ?  As  chlorophyll  appropriates  the  sun- 
light and  builds  up  the  plant,  as  haemoglobin  in  blood 
corpuscles  appropriates  oxygen  and  aerates  the  system, 
producing  combustion  and  supplying  physical  energy, 
faith  appropriates  the  Spirit  of  God  and  brings  His  life 
to  strengthen  and  energize  ours.  Why  should  God  be 
more  illusory  than  the  mate  to  whom  the  sex  impulse 
points,  or  the  light  to  which  chlorophyll  responds,  or  the 
oxygen  to  which  haemoglobin  answers  ? 

And  were  this  stream  of  the  Spirit,  were  the  living 
God,  an  illusion,  would  He  have  retained  His  permanent 
place  in  human  trust  through  all  the  ages?     Would  not 


Change  ajtd  Peemanence  177 

the  illiTsion  have  been  found  out — as  time  and  again  some 
skeptical  thinker  has  declared  the  fraud  unmasked — and 
would  not  the  notion  of  a  companionable  God  have  re- 
mained discredited?  Had  nature  made  a  misstep  when 
she  built  up  chlorophyll  in  plants,  it  would  never  have 
become  the  very  common  element  which  it  is.  Had  man 
made  a  mistake  when  his  spirit  reached  forth  in  trust, 
religion  could  not  have  become  the  almost  universal  and 
enduring  component  in  human  nature  which  it  is.  Chlo- 
rophyll is  itself  a  witness  to  the  existence  of  sunlight,  the 
sex  impulse  a  witness  to  the  existence  of  mates,  religion 
a  witness  to  the  reality  of  God. 

We  have  been  stressing  the  permanency  of  the  Hudson 
River,  despite  the  constant  flowing  away  of  the  water 
which  composes  it.  That  permanency  is  due  to  its  con- 
nection with  the  fabric  of  the  world,  the  scheme  of  na- 
ture. The  sun  in  the  heavens  drawing  up  moisture  and 
forming  clouds,  the  showers  which  fill  the  springs  and 
keep  moist  the  slopes  of  the  mountains,  the  snows  which 
pile  up  on  those  uplands  every  winter,  the  lie  of  the  land 
furnishing  a  watershed  down  the  valley  towards  the  At- 
lantic— all  combine  to  assure  the  continued  existence  of 
the  Hudson  River  which  is  constantly  gliding  away.  Is 
not  the  only  reasonable  interpretation  of  the  abiding  pres- 
ence of  religion  in  the  life  of  men  that  it,  too,  is  connected 
with  the  spiritual  basis  of  the  universe,  that  God  is  as 
actual  as  sun  and  showers  and  mountains  and  valley  and 
ocean  ? 

It  is  one  thing  to  know  of  the  Hudson  River,  because 
you  happen  to  have  learned  of  it  from  a  geography,  and 
to  have  seen  its  line  on  a  map;  it  is  quite  another  thing 


178  What  Is  Theee  in  Religion? 

to  spend  your  life  beside  it,  to  find  your  recreation  in  the 
summits  where  it  rises  and  do  your  work  in  a  city  which 
it  cleanses  and  provides  with  harbor,  to  know  from  experi- 
ence its  refreshment  and  loveliness  and  utility.  It  is 
one  thing  to  be  convinced  that  the  God  and  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ  exists,  because  He  seems  the  reasonable  ex- 
planation of  the  faith  of  those  who  claim  to  know  Him, 
and  to  accord  Him  a  place  on  your  map  of  being;  it  is 
quite  another  thing  to  pass  your  life  in  His  companion- 
ship, and  know  for  yourself  ''the  fullness  of  God." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 

li  JUN  2  4 1974 

JUL  121974 

■1 

NlftR22®85 

Form  L9-Series  444 

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'^^^""3  Research  Library 

BR125   .C65w 
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009  508  865  4 


